My trainer beat me up

Second session with Patty. Man is she brutal. If I didn't look like the exercise was hard enough, she bumped up the weight.  I just love how the hardest exercise of the session is the one she says is going to be my new favorite. My abs hurt...my arms hurt...my legs hurt...my shoulders hurt.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not actually complaining. I know every tender muscle is that little bit closer to my goal. I need to put in 2 more days of cardio before our next session on Tuesday, so I'm heading to the gym to swim laps for a half hour or so. 


I also got busted for not logging my food. It's so hard to remember to do that, but I know it's important. Patty said that if I don't log this week she is going to beat me up, figuratively of course. And I figure that means that if I thought the last session was hard, I'm going to be in big trouble. So, I'm being a good girl so far, and have logged all my food today. 



Healthy and Happy Living

Happy Birthday to me. :)

Yup, it's my birthday and I'm celebrating. I thought this morning about it, and was reminded of a saying we learned in Weight Watchers a while back. When talking about holidays they ask "Do you want to count calories or count memories?" Well, for my birthday this year, I'm counting memories. A delicious Starbucks 5 pump White Mocha no whip this morning, breakfast burrito for breakfast. And later we're going to the new Harry Potter movie, where I plan to eat buttery and yummy popcorn. Then we're going out to dinner, and I'm going to enjoy the food and the company of my husband and son. Lastly, there's the birthday cake, German Chocolate, my favorite. Going to enjoy a nice big slice of that cake. 


Back on the horse tomorrow with Patty. 


Speaking of Patty, she had to cancel our session on Tuesday. So sad, but these things happen. I was very proud of myself though, I went to the gym anyway and put myself through a workout. I was brutal and ruthless, but caved when the lunges started to hurt. I know, I'm such a softy. I think I did pretty well, I hit my calorie burn goal for the day, and was pleasantly sore. We'll see how sore I am after tomorrow's workout when Patty finds out about today. 


Wish me luck!


Healthy and Happy Living

Changes

Had my first training last Friday, man she kicked my butt. Have my next one tomorrow. In between I was given 2 days of homework, 30 minutes of cardio. When life gets busy, it's easy to say "I'll do it tomorrow" but when I know I'm going to be seeing my trainer and she will ask if I did my homework, I find myself a little more focused on getting it done. Good thing number one about a trainer, accountability. 


I am finding it hard to shift my eating habits to 5 or 6 small meals a day. Usually during the day I'm lucky if I remember to eat. I find I do most of my calories at and after dinner. But I'm getting better. Both at spreading out the meals, and making dinner a little smaller. Last night, for example, instead of 6 oz of chicken I cut it in half and did 3. I also did some oven fries with a spice rub seasoning, and kept the amount I had down to a manageable amount. Not bad, right?


Then came the ice cream, only a half cup, so it could have been worse. Can't completely deny ourselves. And then I stayed up late watching scary movies with my son, and we shared a plate of nachos. At least we don't have any soda in the house, so I had Crystal Light instead. Still, if I add it all up, I'm pretty sure I went over my calorie count for the day.


One step at a time I guess. I once heard someone say "You didn't gain the weight overnight, what makes you think you can lose it overnight? So I'll just continue making small changes to eventually change the big picture. 


Healthy and Happy Living

Patty the Trainer

Had a great first meeting with Patty. We talked about her training style, some success stories including her personal weight loss success, my current habits, and my goals. She even gave me homework. I hate homework. But I guess I can manage this one. It's 30 minutes of cardio. 


She gave me a specific way to do my cardio, we talked about heart rate, perceived effort, and interval training. I'll be heading to the gym when I'm done with my workday to do my homework and hit the pool for a while. I think I'll use the recumbent bike today. Doesn't leave me with a sore rear end like the upright type bikes do.


Patty reiterated the importance of 5 to 6 small meals throughout the day to keep my metabolism burning all day. The things I know, but don't do. Silly me. I've been trying to do the small meals, but haven't been eating "good" food, so my small meals are too small. Need to pick up more fruits and veggies to bulk up those meals and still keep the calories manageable. 


Well, my first official training session with Patty is tomorrow evening. I'm looking forward to it, but a little nervous at the same time. Probably because when we went through my medical questionaire, I didn't have anything that she needed to be concerned about. I believe what she said (with an evil smile) was "Good, then I don't have to worry about hurting you." Should I be worried about that? Guess I'll know tomorrow. 


Heading to the gym, push out that cardio so I can tell Patty I did my homework like a good girl. 


Healthy and Happy Living

What a week!

Busy, busy, busy. Had a friend from out of town over to visit for several days, and we kept busy. A 5 mile hike around a local reservoir, an obstacle course followed by a 1 mile nature walk, swimming laps at 24 Hour Fitness (I did 25 laps in the Olympic size pool), and I can't even remember what else. I'm still a little sore, but it was so worth it!


Today I meet my new trainer for the first time. I'm looking forward to working with her. Her name is Patty and from what I've heard she has had great success helping people lose a lot of weight. Hopefully she is just what I need. I'll be seeing her twice a week for the next 5 weeks to get a jump start into getting fit, and to help me get prepared for my next challenge. 


What's my next challenge? I'm so glad you asked. I'll be participating in the Dirty Girl Mud Run in September. It's a 5k muddy obstacle course. I've never done anything like it, and am really looking forward to proving to myself that I can do it. It's non-competitive, so I don't need to worry about how fast I can complete the course, I just need to make it to the end. I've got 2 months to train for it. I know I can do a 5k hike, and the obstacle course I went through last week had many of what I'll be doing in the DGMR, but I had a LOT of trouble trying to get over the wall, so much so that I ended up walking around it. I also had to walk the course, I probably looked a little silly walking through the tires, but hey, I didn't fall. 


So over the next month I'll be doing that obstacle course at least once a week, and will keep trying to get over that wall. I will also be doing the 5k hike to try and pick up the pace a little. Add that to working with my trainer, and I should be set to do the DGMR and will hopefully have between 10 and 20 lbs less to carry through that obstacle course. 


Oh, and if you've been reading my blog for a while, you may notice a change in the name I'm posting from. I've decided to consolidate some of my accounts into one, so I don't have to try and remember which account posts to what blog. 


Healthy and Happy Living

Back in the saddle?

So, how'd my first day back go? Well, I went for a 3 milk hike with some pretty good hill climbs. My legs were jelly after, but I made it. We took the hard path too.

I had a big salad for lunch, very light on the dressing (which was "light" too). Decent dinner, small steak (lean cut with the visible fat cut off) and corn on the cob, which I avoided slathering with butter like I normally would. I discovered to my delight that corn on the cob tastes fantastic if I skip the butter and salt and actually taste the corn.

Then my little slip, I stayed up too late and got a midnight snack craving. Which I quenched with a cup or hot cocoa and a pack of my son's Pop Tarts. Felt a little guilty, but they tasted SOOOO good!

Stats according to my bodybugg:
Calories burned: 2873
Steps taken: 7788
Physical Activity: 1 hour and 10 minutes

All in all, a pretty good day.

Healthy and Happy Living 

It's been a while...

It's been quite some time since I've been doing any blogging. Did anyone miss me?


Life got a little crazy on me. We moved half way across the country, which took some getting used to. Now that we're finally settled in, I'm taking stock of my life. 


I'm a very happy person. I love where we live now. My family is great (even if my husband and son give me headaches sometimes). I do miss the rest of my family, which has led to some emotional times during the holidays. But I'm making friends, and keeping up with everyone on Facebook. 


So what do I need to fix in my life? Unfortunately the same thing I needed to fix back when I started this blog. My weight. 


I'm sad to say I gained back a few of the pounds I had lost, not a lot, but enough that I was not happy with myself for letting that happen. I noticed that the excuses started finding their way into my head again. Now it's that we moved to a higher altitude and the air is thinner, so I get short of breath easy. Great excuse, right? WRONG! That's a great reason to be working out and losing weight. If I was in better shape I would have probably acclimated better. 


Well no more excuses! I'm back in the saddle and ready to ride. I'm currently at *gasp* 262lbs. I'm shooting for 255 by the end of the month. But will be happy with any weight loss I get, as numbers heading down are better than numbers heading up. 


I've changed my mini-goal and have decided to make it 10% of my starting weight. I started at 275, so I'm down 13 so far, almost half way to that mini-goal. When I hit it, I'm going to go get my hair done. 


Healthy and Happy Living

New Year's Resolutions

I normally don't make New Year's Resolutions, they tend to be vague and easily breakable. I have made them in the past saying things like "I'll eat healthier" or "I'll workout more" Now comeon, adding one serving of veggies may be healthier, but is it really with the spirit of that resolution? And anything is "more" when you aren't working out at all. So for the last 2 years I haven't made any New Year's Resolutions. I also hear somewhere that if something in your life is important enough for you to change that you'd make a resolution about it, why would you wait for New Year's? 


Well, here's the thing. Since I stopped making New Year's Resolutions, I've made a few of those same generic and vague resolutions at other times in the year. It's not like I'm busting out with all sorts of changes that are making my life better. So the other day at work, our department Exec Asst sent out a template for us to come up with a resolution that would be posted in the department area so we could all encourage each other, keep each other accountable, and celebrate together when we hit our resolutions, My first thought was "No thank you, I don't do New Year's Resolutions." But the more I thought about it, the more I got to thinking that maybe the problem is with the resolutions, not with making one.


What if I just needing something more tangible, more trackable, and more specific. So that's what I did. My New Year's Resolution is to walk/jog/run 180 miles (that's 15 miles a month) during 2010. I will be tracking my miles through the BeeWell For Life site, which donates $0.15 for every mile


~~~~Challenge Update~~~~
Weigh In and Body Fat%
Starting Weight: 258
Starting BF: 51.6%


Tuesday was pretty good, I had scrambled eggs with ketchup, sausage and whole grain toast for breakfast with a cup of coffee (only one). A cup of hot cocoa for lunch (got busy and forgot to eat, bad girl), and a can of Diet Cherry Coke and Lasagna for dinner. Overall not a bad day for food, but not a great one either. 


Spent the day working at my computer, and before I knew it, the day was over & I didn't do any working out. Hopefully Wednesday will be better.

Healthy and Happy Living