Do you have those one, two or maybe three things at the gym that are absolutely hard? No matter how many people do them well, it seems like you struggle with them? Here are a FEW of mine:
1. Push-Ups: I blame my height - at 6'2" this girl has some long limbs...I totally rock the kneeling "girl" push-ups, but don't ask me to do the "boy" push-ups because I can only eek out 2 or 3. And don't even get me started on the "tricep push-ups" I can only go down about 1/2 way while I'm on my knees because I definitely fear that my face will meet the floor with a great big thud. We do these at BodyCombat and while I've definitely improved a lot, they are still very challenging.
2. Running: I don't know why, but it is a true struggle for me to run. I think I have good form, but I am just so slow - doesn't mean that I don't try, I do - but I don't have that natural gift of gracefully trotting around the track - it's more like a clopping =)
3. Step-Mill: Holy Cow! If you want to see Em sweat take a gander at me while I'm on the step-mill. It is ridiculously hard for me. I sweat, I breathe hard, I sweat some more and pray to make it to the end of my workout. I would honestly rather RUN (see #2) than do the step-mill. That being said....
I do all 3 of these things at least twice a week. I've started "warming up" with a mile run around the track at the gym every day. Am I fast? Nope. Does my butt jiggle when I run? You betcha. But I do it because I know that eventually I'll get faster - even if it's only shaving 10 seconds off my time - it's still something. Today I ran my mile in 8:45 - fastest I've ever done it. And at the end of my run I thought "Man, I'm slow, let's see what I can do tomorrow". Same with the step-mill - it was HARD to finish those 40 minutes today and I will get my push-ups on at my class on Wednesday and Friday (assuming my daughter doesn't bite anyone). I guess my point is (cheesy line coming up) the HARD is what makes the journey/day/workout worth it - because then it ends up that I've really accomplished something that day.
My question for you is, what are you doing or maybe avoiding that is hard for you to do in your workouts? Think of something you can do this week that will take you out of your "routine" and really help you push yourself!
this is me now
Monday, November 1, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
A Promise Is A Promise
Please, do not adjust your computer screens - this is actually happening.....blogging twice in one week. I know, it is a little freaky, but just keep reading and everything will be alright. I promised to share some of my new favorites, but first I want to share a "victory" from this week.
Wednesdays and Fridays I take a BodyCombat class at the gym. I have been going for probably 4 or 5 months and I looove it. It is hard, makes me wish I was dead and I look forward to the classes each week. This past Wednesday I dropped my sweet girl Livvy off at the gym daycare and headed up to class. About 20 minutes in one of the workers came to get me out of class - I thought maybe she had a stinky diaper - turns out she BIT a little boys ear.....needless to say, we were sent home for the day. And while I was very upset with my daughter, I confess that I was also very upset for myself. It's been a rough week - I've been doing what I do and for some reason my 234.4 has been a stinkin' 238.3 for much of the week (I was down to 236.7 this morning). I was so upset that I drove across the parking lot to Target - I had a plan..... a plan to eat. I mean, what else was I going to do ???? I could feel all of that anxiety of missing my class and the frustration of jumping back up few pounds building up inside and I instinctively went for the quick fix. I sat in my truck in the parking lot of Target with the engine running for a good 5 minutes - going over in my mind the advantages of getting some junk to eat, how it would make me feel better and make the "situation" not so upsetting. Then I looked at my daughter in the backseat and I wondered what kind of example I was being - and why her biting a kids ear was a free pass to hurt myself - because I would be hating what I'd done a few hours after the binge..... So I drove me and my Mike Tyson daughter home - I immediately pulled out the stroller, put my water in the basket, grabbed my i-pod and went for a great walk/jog for 40 minutes. And I got to take my class today, sweated like crazy, wished for death and left excited for it happen all over again next week.
Moving on...... here are some of the things I've been eating the past month or so.
Breakfast for the past couple of months has been oatmeal. I buy the huge bags of the regular Quaker Oats from Costco - it has to be cooked for 5minutes on the stove. So I set my timer for 3:30 and while that's going I slice up a banana (small or medium, whatever works) and stir the banana in for the last 1:30. After it's all cooked up and in the bowl I add a ton of cinnamon, a packet of splenda/truvia/whatever and add a 1/2 cup of almond or 1% milk when I'm ready to eat it. Tastes like banana nut bread - it is so good and filling.
For my post workout snack I have been having a Myoplex CarbAdvantage chocolate fudge shake and a peanut butter tote. You can find the recipe here - Corinne over at Phit-n-Phat provided links to her recipe book at SparkPeople. Me and Livvy loooove teh pb totes - I end up cutting them into eight squares and we each have one 4 days a week. Make sure you wrap each one in tinfoil after you cut them - mine take around 45 to 50 minutes to cook and I always sprinkle one packet of splenda on top of the whole thing right after it comes out of the oven.
For lunches I have been eating - drumroll please......... Michaelina's Frozen Entree's - I am serious as a heart attack. My beautiful sister Glamazon got me hooked. She loves the Lean Shrimp and Pasta (totally delish) and I'm a bit addicted to the regular manicotti. It seems like a weird thing to have, but they are low in calories and it helps me through the toughest part of my day - I always pair it with a spinach salad: 3 cups of spinach, 1/3 avacado, 2 T. Light Zesty Italian and 1/2 T. of sunflower seeds. In this picture I added 1/4 c. of garbanzo beans and I really did NOT like them in the salad.
Wednesdays and Fridays I take a BodyCombat class at the gym. I have been going for probably 4 or 5 months and I looove it. It is hard, makes me wish I was dead and I look forward to the classes each week. This past Wednesday I dropped my sweet girl Livvy off at the gym daycare and headed up to class. About 20 minutes in one of the workers came to get me out of class - I thought maybe she had a stinky diaper - turns out she BIT a little boys ear.....needless to say, we were sent home for the day. And while I was very upset with my daughter, I confess that I was also very upset for myself. It's been a rough week - I've been doing what I do and for some reason my 234.4 has been a stinkin' 238.3 for much of the week (I was down to 236.7 this morning). I was so upset that I drove across the parking lot to Target - I had a plan..... a plan to eat. I mean, what else was I going to do ???? I could feel all of that anxiety of missing my class and the frustration of jumping back up few pounds building up inside and I instinctively went for the quick fix. I sat in my truck in the parking lot of Target with the engine running for a good 5 minutes - going over in my mind the advantages of getting some junk to eat, how it would make me feel better and make the "situation" not so upsetting. Then I looked at my daughter in the backseat and I wondered what kind of example I was being - and why her biting a kids ear was a free pass to hurt myself - because I would be hating what I'd done a few hours after the binge..... So I drove me and my Mike Tyson daughter home - I immediately pulled out the stroller, put my water in the basket, grabbed my i-pod and went for a great walk/jog for 40 minutes. And I got to take my class today, sweated like crazy, wished for death and left excited for it happen all over again next week.
Moving on...... here are some of the things I've been eating the past month or so.
Breakfast for the past couple of months has been oatmeal. I buy the huge bags of the regular Quaker Oats from Costco - it has to be cooked for 5minutes on the stove. So I set my timer for 3:30 and while that's going I slice up a banana (small or medium, whatever works) and stir the banana in for the last 1:30. After it's all cooked up and in the bowl I add a ton of cinnamon, a packet of splenda/truvia/whatever and add a 1/2 cup of almond or 1% milk when I'm ready to eat it. Tastes like banana nut bread - it is so good and filling.
For my post workout snack I have been having a Myoplex CarbAdvantage chocolate fudge shake and a peanut butter tote. You can find the recipe here - Corinne over at Phit-n-Phat provided links to her recipe book at SparkPeople. Me and Livvy loooove teh pb totes - I end up cutting them into eight squares and we each have one 4 days a week. Make sure you wrap each one in tinfoil after you cut them - mine take around 45 to 50 minutes to cook and I always sprinkle one packet of splenda on top of the whole thing right after it comes out of the oven.
For lunches I have been eating - drumroll please......... Michaelina's Frozen Entree's - I am serious as a heart attack. My beautiful sister Glamazon got me hooked. She loves the Lean Shrimp and Pasta (totally delish) and I'm a bit addicted to the regular manicotti. It seems like a weird thing to have, but they are low in calories and it helps me through the toughest part of my day - I always pair it with a spinach salad: 3 cups of spinach, 1/3 avacado, 2 T. Light Zesty Italian and 1/2 T. of sunflower seeds. In this picture I added 1/4 c. of garbanzo beans and I really did NOT like them in the salad.
This week was interesting - by interesting I mean mentally hard - but I feel like I "won" the week and can't wait for the next seven days.
this is me now.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Are any of you still out there? If you are.....bless your hearts! Thanks for staying interested - whether it's interested in if I'm still losing weight or if I've started gaining it back - whatever floats your boat =)
These past 6 weeks have been interesting....actually more like the past 4 weeks. The first 2 of the 6 weeks since I've posted were pretty much like most of my year has been...... struggling like crazy just to "maintain" or not gain too much weight. I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again, but this changing my life and being different and focusing on the journey and not the destination crap is HARD.
It's hard to find new ways to motivate myself, it's hard coming up with new routines at the gym, it's hard driving home from a trip to Target or Costco and not stopping at McDonald's for lunch, it's hard to lose 63 pounds and then gain some of them back and fluctuate between a 55 pound and 60 pound loss for 6 freakin' months (that's not just hard, it totally sucks too!)
But it's also definitely hard to be so heavy that you only have 3 shirts to wear, it's hard to be so big that all you do is sweat - doesn't matter if it's the middle of summer or the middle of winter, it's hard to LOOK at yourself at 297 pounds and feel like an absolute failure.
Both things are hard - it's hard to change and it's just as hard to stay the same..... I guess it just depends on how "hard" I want my life to be.
Well, I've kept going and it finally clicked again.... thanks in part to my sister, the beautiful Glamazon , we had a conversation about a month ago and she was telling me about how much weight she had been losing and in the middle of our convo I recognized her journey because it was a lot like mine - more like the 2009 journey and not so much the 2010 journey - and all of a sudden everything clicked again! As of Saturday I weighed in at 234.4 - I have lost almost 8 pounds in the last 4 weeks. I feel happy and focused and driven....I feel like my old, new self. I have some new favorites - as in breakfast, lunch and snacks that I will be posting about later this week...promise!
this is me now
These past 6 weeks have been interesting....actually more like the past 4 weeks. The first 2 of the 6 weeks since I've posted were pretty much like most of my year has been...... struggling like crazy just to "maintain" or not gain too much weight. I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again, but this changing my life and being different and focusing on the journey and not the destination crap is HARD.
It's hard to find new ways to motivate myself, it's hard coming up with new routines at the gym, it's hard driving home from a trip to Target or Costco and not stopping at McDonald's for lunch, it's hard to lose 63 pounds and then gain some of them back and fluctuate between a 55 pound and 60 pound loss for 6 freakin' months (that's not just hard, it totally sucks too!)
But it's also definitely hard to be so heavy that you only have 3 shirts to wear, it's hard to be so big that all you do is sweat - doesn't matter if it's the middle of summer or the middle of winter, it's hard to LOOK at yourself at 297 pounds and feel like an absolute failure.
Both things are hard - it's hard to change and it's just as hard to stay the same..... I guess it just depends on how "hard" I want my life to be.
Well, I've kept going and it finally clicked again.... thanks in part to my sister, the beautiful Glamazon , we had a conversation about a month ago and she was telling me about how much weight she had been losing and in the middle of our convo I recognized her journey because it was a lot like mine - more like the 2009 journey and not so much the 2010 journey - and all of a sudden everything clicked again! As of Saturday I weighed in at 234.4 - I have lost almost 8 pounds in the last 4 weeks. I feel happy and focused and driven....I feel like my old, new self. I have some new favorites - as in breakfast, lunch and snacks that I will be posting about later this week...promise!
Monday, September 13, 2010
One Year Older and Wiser Too
I turned 33 yesterday. I'm not one of those people that gets freaked out by getting older - didn't care when I turned 30 and I'm hoping to feel the same way about 40, 50, 60 (you get the picture). This year for my birthday I got exactly what I wanted - a Wendy's card from grandma and grandpa (such a treat!), a gift card from my parents, a gift certificate for a 1 hour massage (I'm excited beyond belief about it), an i-tunes card - I can never have too many great songs for my workouts, from the hubs, and a beautiful bracelet from my daughters. The hubs made an awesome cake and we tolerated enjoyed a nice, crazy, noisy Sunday with the kids. I am looking forward to this next year - a year of trying to live a balanced life, a year of respecting my body and appreciating the gift that it truley is, of trying new things and seeing endless possibilities.
this is me now.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
A compliment.....
A lady in my BodyCombat class came up to me on Wednesday after we were done and said "You did such a good job, I'm new to class and I just followed you the whole time". I completely realize that I'm patting myself on the back right now, but that was such an amazing compliment. I try really hard to get my form right on all of our punches and kicks and it was nice to know that I'm doing it well enough that someone feels like they can look at me to see what we're doing.........or else they can't see past me and they have no other choice =).
Countdown to baby time. My birthday is approaching. If you will remember several posts ago I said we would start trying for our 4th baby (I know, we kind of think we're crazy too) when I lost 30 more pounds or turned 33, whichever came first. Obviously the 33 is coming first because I just don't think I'll be losing 30 pounds in 3 1/2 weeks.....Actually, if I would have been posting this 2 years ago I'm positive that I would have thought I could lose 30 pounds in 3 1/2 weeks, then been so disappointed in myself for not losing the weight that I probably would have gained an extra 10 before I got pregnant. Not that I'm expecting to get pregnant right away, but by the end of the year would be fabulous.
this is me now.
Countdown to baby time. My birthday is approaching. If you will remember several posts ago I said we would start trying for our 4th baby (I know, we kind of think we're crazy too) when I lost 30 more pounds or turned 33, whichever came first. Obviously the 33 is coming first because I just don't think I'll be losing 30 pounds in 3 1/2 weeks.....Actually, if I would have been posting this 2 years ago I'm positive that I would have thought I could lose 30 pounds in 3 1/2 weeks, then been so disappointed in myself for not losing the weight that I probably would have gained an extra 10 before I got pregnant. Not that I'm expecting to get pregnant right away, but by the end of the year would be fabulous.
this is me now.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Pluggin' Along
Still here. Still trying. Still struggling to come up with "interesting" posts about my latest accomplishments, which is pretty much that I'm maintaining my weight. And while that's a good thing - when I think about how many years I slowly gained another 20 pounds each year(must have been at least 6, not counting the two years I was pregnant) I have to say that maintaining is a pretty significant thing. The flip side of that is I have been at the same weight for pretty much all of 2010. Realistically, there's NOTHING wrong with that (sometimes it helps to put things in caps, mostly for my benefit). I honestly get up each day and go out in the hot Vegas sun without sweating much - 60 pounds and 16 months ago I was sweating a bunch in the 70 degree weather in Idaho. I am not self-conscious anymore. I enjoy where I'm at and what I'm doing and hardly give my body a second thought. I feel confident at the gym and go 5 days a week - I love it. I went to the movies with the hubs last Saturday and slid right into the seat - I remember barely squeezing into movie seats and setting the popcorn on the floor, having it tip over and just wanting to crawl in a hole and die because I was going to have to bend over to pick up the bag and I knew my butt would be hanging out, my stomach would only let me bend over so far and would be silently berating myself for being such a fat, blah, blah, blah.... you get the picture.
Am I happy with where I am? Yes, I would say my maintaining my weight would answer that. Am I content? No. I still have a number in mind and that number is 180. Right now I would settle for 220. By Thanksgiving. Putting it out there again. It kind of seems lame to me that I keep getting on here, stating pretty much the same things, and then getting on 3 or 4 weeks later and doing it all over again. But, I'm a work in progress.
Is my journey over? Nope. Am I still trying? Yep. Do I get discouraged? Of course! Will I give up? Never!
this is me now
Am I happy with where I am? Yes, I would say my maintaining my weight would answer that. Am I content? No. I still have a number in mind and that number is 180. Right now I would settle for 220. By Thanksgiving. Putting it out there again. It kind of seems lame to me that I keep getting on here, stating pretty much the same things, and then getting on 3 or 4 weeks later and doing it all over again. But, I'm a work in progress.
this is me now
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Favorite Smoothie So Far.......
So, I loooove the Green Monster. It is amazing. It is great. However, I think I mighta found something I love a little more. My girls wanted a smoothie for breakfast last Thursday - but one of my twins hates bananas and they were going to share - so I grabbed my ginormous bag of strawberries from the freezer - popped 6 frozen strawberries, one container of raspberry carbmaster yogurt & one cup of almond milk in the blender. They loved it and it got me thinking about my love of the GM and wondering how it might taste with the strawberries instead of the banana. And then I continued thinking about how nice it might be to add the container of carb-smart yogurt to the mix. And THEN I started thinking about how it might taste totally awesome with a little bit of coconut extract to it and guess what? SO freakin' good. Seriously. Here's the breakdown:
2 T. Ground Flax
2 C. Fresh Spinach
1 Container Kroger CarbMaster Raspberry yogurt
1 C. Almond Milk
6 Frozen Strawberries
1/3 Capful of Coconut Extract (totally optional)
This is 290 Calories. It contains 19g of protein and 14g of fiber. If you wanted to, you could always do 1T. of flax and that would bring your calories down to 255 - but it is seriously so full of good stuff that I think the extra 35 calories are worth it. And protein is SO, SO, SO important when you working hard and weight training. Anyway, I'm just loving this right now - and it's still a very cheap meal and you're getting 19g of protein (12 of it is from the yogurt) without having to buy protein powder - and 14g of fiber, holla!
Moving on. I last weighed in on Friday and my weight was 238.4. I am very pleased with that number. I am hoping I'm down to 237 by Friday or Saturday of this week - I'm making the choices that should put me there.
this is me now.
2 T. Ground Flax
2 C. Fresh Spinach
1 Container Kroger CarbMaster Raspberry yogurt
1 C. Almond Milk
6 Frozen Strawberries
1/3 Capful of Coconut Extract (totally optional)
This is 290 Calories. It contains 19g of protein and 14g of fiber. If you wanted to, you could always do 1T. of flax and that would bring your calories down to 255 - but it is seriously so full of good stuff that I think the extra 35 calories are worth it. And protein is SO, SO, SO important when you working hard and weight training. Anyway, I'm just loving this right now - and it's still a very cheap meal and you're getting 19g of protein (12 of it is from the yogurt) without having to buy protein powder - and 14g of fiber, holla!
Moving on. I last weighed in on Friday and my weight was 238.4. I am very pleased with that number. I am hoping I'm down to 237 by Friday or Saturday of this week - I'm making the choices that should put me there.
this is me now.
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