I Did IT!!

Christmas Day weight... 160lbs!!! I made my original goal. I have lost 20 lbs is 2 months. Ahhh it feels so great. Now, I just have 2 more days of "Christmas" to make it through and then temptation is gone. It is very hard to eat healthy these couple days. We are staying with my in-laws and what is made isn't exactly healthy. To them it is but to me it's not good and I get to deal my wonderful husband who goes a little crazy and eats too much causing crazy heartburn and lots of complaining. Ohhh I love weekends away.

December 19, 2008

Oops. I haven't posted in a week and a half. School started back up for me and I guess I've been side tracked. I posted new pictures the other day. They aren't the greatest but better than the ones a month ago. I love seeing that my belly and thighs are getting smaller. Oh I can't wait until I reach my final goal. I want to be HOT HOT HOT!!
Exercise I've fallen in love with: jump squats
Do a regular squat, don't bend your knees past the tips of your toes and keep your back straight, and jump up, go back down in the squat.
I do these as part of the cardio surge workout on a day that I don't lift lower body. Oh does love hurt. The next day the inner thighs are sore.
EXCITING NEWS!!!
After much discussing with my hubby and careful planning I will be designing a complete weight loss/ healthy living plan. I will have different 1 month plans, meals and exercises, for every need. All I will need is weight, height, age, and activity level. Why do I need this? Everyone is different and I don't want to send a 65 year old 5' 5" 180lbs person who doesn't exercise a plan with running and a lot of jumping. This would only be a great way to blow her knees. On the other end I don't want to send a 25 year old 6' 170lbs person who exercises multiple times a week a plan that only has walking. Flip flop those plans and we have a good combination. I have not decided what the charge will be for these plans, how in depth I will go, or if I will make additional monthly plans. I am on break again so I will have some time to start. As soon as this is available I will post it.

If I don't post again before Christmas have a good one.

A Little Discouraged

This morning I woke up like most days. Roll out of bed, go to the bathroom and weigh myself, 165. What?!?! I try it again, same thing. I was very down. I just wanted to go back to bed. What was the point of working out? I weighed the same as I did a week ago. Going back to bed looked real tempting by my shoes sitting in the bathroom were right there. I stood there thinking bed or workout? Bed, more sleep, wake up in 45 minutes, feel bad that I didn't workout. Workout, feel good about myself, only takes 30 minutes, probably won't fall asleep anyway. 2 minutes later, I was downstairs not wanting to use the elliptical. I just wasn't in the mood to bust my butt so I warmed up on the elliptical and did the surge with jumping jacks and jumping rope. While I was doing my workout I got thinking about my weight. Why is it not going down? I'm working out more, I'm eating healthy, I'm getting a good amount of sleep (for a mom of a 3 month old), I'm lifting 3 times a week. And that's when I got it. Silly me, muscle weighs more than fat. Then I started looking at my arms, yeah I guess there is more muscle there. Then I looked at my legs and oh, my quad dent is back (haven't seen that since CC and track days), hey there's my line for the quad/hamstring separation. Holy cow!!! Now I was totally pumped about doing my workout. I wanted to go longer lifting today but knew I had to beat my husband to the shower and get it in before the baby woke up hungry. Ah, another reason the scale wasn't what I wanted. I'm a breastfeeding mommy and hadn't been "milked" in awhile. Moooo. While in the shower I was thinking some more. It's easy to forget about gaining muscle and get obsessed with the number on the scale. A friend of mine weighed 150 lbs and looked like she weighed 125 lbs. She was pure muscle. That's the body I want. I was weighing myself everyday, I was obsessed. This morning in the shower I decided I'm not going to weigh myself until Christmas. There is no need to weigh everyday. All it does is pump you up when the number is lower and makes you feel really discouraged when it's up. That could be another reason for not dropping the pounds. Too much negative energy about how I'm not losing. If I don't weigh myself then it's a lot easier to put out the positive energy that I am fit and that I love my body.
Now, there is a difference from loving your body and doing what you can to take care of it (ie exercise, eat healthy) and this is the way my body is, I'll just accept it, open a can of diet soda, and plop down on the sofa and watch TV. That isn't love. Once you love yourself then you'll see a difference. It may take sometime, but it does work. Trust me. I lost 10 lbs after our daughter just by looking the the full length mirror and telling myself, out loud, "I love you, you are perfect, and you are beautiful."
Do this for a month and people around you will notice how good you look, how positive you are and you'll feel great.

Step it up

Around Thanksgiving I noticed that I wasn't losing weight as fast as I would like. Probably because I ate like crap 2 weekends in a row. I was at 168 (Saturday) and my goal for Christmas is 150. I have to lose 18 lbs in 4 weeks and I hadn't lost an ounce the week before. Eeks!! I got a hold of Patrick a couple days later and he said to go ahead and step it up. Do the surge workout 5 days a week and resistance (weights) surge 3 days a week. He wasn't sure if I was really going to lose a bunch of weight really fast or not, and to listen to my body. If I was getting burnt out to go ahead and take a day off. I gave it a shot.
Monday (165 lbs) - Surge workout
Tuesday (165.5 lbs) - Surge workout plus upper body resistance surge*
Wednesday (164 lbs) - Surge workout plus lower body resistance surge**
Thursday (163 lbs) - Had a bad sore throat from a runny nose I had so I slept in.
Now I'm back on track. Only 13 lbs in 3 weeks (Just over 4 lbs a week).

* 3 - 20 second surges, same layout as the cardio surges, of each; push-ups, crunches, bicep curls, tricep kick back
**3-20 second surges of each; hamstring curls, quad extension, inner thigh, outer thigh

1 Down, 1 To Go

Ahh, Thanksgiving is over. How'd you do? I can honestly say that I did a lot better than I do most years. We went to the in-laws and had a great turkey casserole. It had the turkey, gravy and stuffing all in one. Granted it's not the best for you, it kept me from having a plate full of stuffing. My husband and I both heeded my advise and we felt loads better after the meal than anyone else there. When dessert came around I passed. I did however, have some cookies later than night. I had a couple pops and chips and chili cheese dip. It was kind of hard not taking all the things that I usually do and drinking a 12 pack during the 2 days we stay with my in-laws. But, on the way home I felt better than ever. Usually we are both so tired and don't want to do anything. When we got home we unpacked the car and went to my parents. We only had about 6 hrs of sleep and felt just fine. Even though I tried so hard to eat healthy my scale won't budge for a couple of days. The good thing is that I didn't gain anything during those 2 days. Come Christmas time and Christmas parties I probably won't have any pop. Is a pop really worth not losing weight? Probably not.

After only 3 weeks of this new life style I have gotten so used to it that I didn't think of it as being hard to take my own food and snacks, workout in the morning, and make the right choices. Our 2.5 year old is even making health choices. Seeing her ask for radishes and carrots makes me feel so good. How many kids her age would ask for those?

In a couple days I will be back to giving tips for weight loss and healthy living. Until then:
Good luck with all your weight loss goals. You can do it!!

Totally Bombed!! Goals

Well over the weekend I totally bombed my un-diet!! I had 3 glasses of Pepsi, a bun, toast, chips, and I think more pop. Oh man!! However, I'm very lucking, the only crappy things that happened were I felt a little sluggish and I didn't lose any weight. Normally I lose about .5 to 1 pound a day. It took a couple days but I lost 2 pounds this morning. Ahh back to normal.
My original Christmas goal was to be down to 160 lbs. I'm at 165 so I decided to change the goal to 150. It's going to be hard and I might not make it but at least I know I can't afford to take too many vacation days. If I didn't have goals I don't think that I would effectively lose weight. How many times have you wanted to lose weight but either didn't have a goal or had a goal that was just too far out or reach? Not only do you need to create goals but you need to have a reward for reaching your goal. I mean why have a goal just to reach and then you get to say yippee I did it, now what? With me, when I reach my Christmas goal I get a piercing. When I've reached my final goal I will get this really cute diaper bag/ purse from gogagalife.com. I have made any goals between Christmas and the end but I will make them as I get closer.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Good luck with all your weight loss goals. You can do it!!

Surviving the Holidays

Well Thanksgiving is less than a week away. Talk about a bad time to start changing your life style, but it doesn't have to be all that bad. Just schedule your vacation days around your get togethers. And when you are fixing your plate don't load it up with things you can have any time. Heck, don't load up your plate at all. At our Thanksgiving there will be turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pasta salads, jello salads, rolls, and desserts. Now I don't really like this kind of turkey but if I did I would have a good sized serving of turkey, a couple bites of stuffing and maybe a pasta salad or 2, and split a roll with my husband or daughter. After your plate is empty ask yourself if you are still hungry. If not then stop, if you are then go back for seconds but follow the same kind of pattern. Just because stuffing is the best thing up there don't get a whole plate full. Why didn't I want mashed potatoes? Because I can have mashed potatoes on any vacation day. Why eat "bad" foods you can have anytime when there are plenty that are special for this event.
For the desert table there will be cheesecake, pumpkin pie, a couple other pies, chips, and crackers. Last year I would have tried to force down a full slice of every kind. This year I will just cut a sliver of the desserts that I can't have everyday. I might also just ask my husband for a bite of his if he has something different than what I have.
If you follow these few ideas then while everyone else is sitting around with a gut bomb you will be very energized and not feel like crap.
Have a Happy, Health Thanksgiving and good luck with all your weight loss goals.

Nutrition

Ahh the fun stuff, eating. Ask anyone that worked with me while I was pregnant and they will tell you how much I love to eat. Ask one of my former co-workers and she'll tell you how I can make mac & cheese from the box sound like it's made for a king. I'm very passionate about food, so the idea of a diet is not good for me. Luckily that's not at all what Patrick told me to do. I get to eat as much as I want the only catch is no sugar or anything that breaks down to sugar and no bad fats. Sounds hard at first but the thing is you're not on a diet. You are just changing your lifestyle and you can do it slowly if you need to. I was addicted to Pepsi, I would have 2-3 cans a day. After meeting with Patrick I chose to only have a Pepsi on Wednesdays and Sundays. If you have a certain vice start out by cutting back on it. Choose vacation days. If you do this there is less chance of binging, and if you do happen to go a little nuts one day, oh well. No one is perfect. Just try and remember how you felt after the binge and try to avoid doing it again. I did it with pizza one night. I had 3 bread sticks, a slice of large BLT stuff crust, and a Pepsi and felt like crap before we even left the parking lot. Guess what... I no longer have any desire to go near a Pizza Hut now.
Ok, ok enough with the chit chat. Now what foods are ideal for your body?

Raw nuts and seeds, eat carefully too many can cause you digestive system to operate a little
faster than you want. ;)
Lean meats (organic if possible), chicken, turkey, beef, fish (in moderation)
Veggies, only veggie you need organic would be peppers
Berries, organic are best and eat at the start of the day
Green apples, organic are best and eat at the start of the day
Use Stevia as a sweetener if you need to.

There that should get you started.

Good luck with your weight loss goals, you can do it!!

Note to Patrick

Thank you Patrick for your comment. This blog is for you two and your practice. I want people to see one of the lives that you have changed. A place for you to send your clients to show them they can do it too. A place for anyone that's feeling down so see that they aren't the only ones.

I know I only have to do 3 surges each time, cutting the workout by 4 minutes. I just like to for 4 surges so if there is a morning I'm not feeling up for exercise I can cut it down to 3 and still see results. Also, I watch TV shows online at the same time. This means it only takes 3 workouts to get through 1 episode of The Starter Wife.

Let me know if there is anything else you would like to see on here or if there is something I posted wrong. Remember, it's all for you guys. The weight loss is for my family and me but the blog is for you.

Total weight loss after 2 weeks - 6.5 lbs

Thank you for everything so far.

Workout

As I mentioned yesterday Patrick showed me a workout routine and you'll never believe this but I only workout 16 minutes every other day. I can do more if I want and sometimes I do. Well, here's what I do:

3 minute warm up, about walk/jogging pace
20 seconds hard, very hard almost as fast as I can go
20 seconds easy, I use this as my rest but I keep moving
20 seconds hard
20 seconds easy
20 seconds hard
20 seconds easy
20 seconds hard
2 minutes easy

I do this 3 times. By the end I'm sweating like I just ran 3 miles in the middle of summer. I have been using our elliptical trainer so far and I'm thinking of using a jump rope on those days I need something more fun than the elliptical. You can do anything you want to walking, running, step, stairs, jumping jacks, really anything that gets your heart really going.

For additional strength training I lift light weights, do sit-ups and push-ups. I just do this so I get up at the same time everyday and not have to change the alarm everyday. Hey, I'm just too lazy to change the alarm.

Thank you for reading my blog and be sure to leave a comment. Good luck with all your weight loss goals.

Welcome!!

Hello!! Welcome to my blog. My goal is to post, at least, everyday I do a workout. First a little about me so you can see that I'm just an average person. I am a 23 year old with a 2.5 year old girl and 2 month old boy. We live in the Midwest and I am a full time student in voice captioning. My weight before my daughter was 125 lbs and gained 25 lbs. I was not in the mood to work out to lose the weight. The last thing I wanted to do was starve myself and spend hours at the gym. So, when I got pregnant with our son I still had that extra weight from our daughter. This time I gained 30 lbs. Yep, I went from 125 lbs to 180 lbs in 2.5 years. This time I said "That's it! I'm going to get skinny and fit and look good in my pre-daughter clothes." I started listening to podcasts and read Body By God by Dr. Ben Lerner. I started to create my new life style. I worked out 6 days a week and started eating different. I lost 5 lbs my first week!! The next week, nothing. :( I was tired and doing what I was supposed to and nothing happened. So, I turned to our chiropractic friends who follow the teachings for Dr. Ben and the Maximized Wellness method. Patrick came over the very night I asked for help. My husband was working late that night so, there ended up being Patrick, myself, a 2.5 year old, a 6 month old, and 1.5 month old. Yes, all those kids and I was able to do the work out, talk about nutrition, normal chit chat, and feed the babies in about 1.5 hours. Good luck finding that anywhere else.