Lose that weight! Week 3

Okay, last week was a bit of a bust. I got sick in the middle and then had too many late nights and early mornings. But tomorrow is a new day and I'm getting right back to work!


Last Week's Plan
Monday--Tone & Tighten 8:45 AM, Treadmill--Stayed home to finish something my publisher needed right away but did some hand weights and squats in my kitchen. Went to the night weight class in the pool with my daughters.
Tuesday--Zumba 6:10 PM, Serenity Yoga 7 PM--Fail
Wednesday--Tone & Tighten 8:45 AM, Treadmill--Sick
Thursday--Zumba 6:10 PM, Serenity Yoga 7 PM--Fail
Friday--Water Aerobics 8:45 AM, Treadmill--Went for a half hour walk
Saturday I walked around (slow/shopping I HATE SHOPPING) from 9:30-2:00. That's got to count for something, right?

This Week's Plan
Monday--Tone & Tighten 8:45 AM, Treadmill
Tuesday--Zumba 9:30 AM
Wednesday--PiYo 10:30 AM, Treadmill
Thursday--Tone & Tighten 8:45 AM
Friday--Water Aerobics 8:45 AM, Treadmill

Getting Healthy Week 2

Last week went pretty good, even though I had to make some changes in my plan.

Last Week's Plan

Monday--Cardio Step 8:45 AM  I ran/walked 2 miles/hills/40 minutes on the treadmill
Tuesday--Treadmill 8:00 AM, Tone & Tighten 8:45 AM, Zumba 6:10 PM with my girls I went to yoga with hubby instead
Wednesday--PiYo (pilates and yoga mix) 10:30 AM Tone & Tighten with a new friend and ran 1 mile
Thursday--Treadmill 8:00 AM, Tone & Tighten 8:45 AM, Zumba 6:10 PM Took a day off to sleep all day!
Friday--Cardio Step 8:45 AM Water Aerobics
Saturday--Treadmill 10:00 AM, Yoga 10:50 AM Just went for a short walk with my family

Even though I made changes, I'm proud of myself for doing something each day. It's a good start!

This Week's Plan
Monday--Tone & Tighten 8:45 AM, Treadmill
Tuesday--Zumba 6:10 PM, Serenity Yoga 7 PM
Wednesday--Tone & Tighten 8:45 AM, Treadmill
Thursday--Zumba 6:10 PM, Serenity Yoga 7 PM
Friday--Water Aerobics 8:45 AM, Treadmill

Post Thanksgiving Training Week 1

I'm starting over.

Again.

We've recently moved, so it's a new house, new town, and a new state of mind. Right?

There's no better time than now to start. Plus, I haven't been running in over a year. I really miss it and want to start up again. The Country Music 1/2 is in 5 months and I think I can be ready.

Here's the plan for the week:

Monday--Cardio Step 8:45 AM
Tuesday--Treadmill 8:00 AM, Tone & Tighten 8:45 AM, Zumba 6:10 PM with my girls
Wednesday--PiYo (pilates and yoga mix) 10:30 AM
Thursday--Treadmill 8:00 AM, Tone & Tighten 8:45 AM, Zumba 6:10 PM
Friday--Cardio Step 8:45 AM
Saturday--Treadmill 10:00 AM, Yoga 10:50 AM

Frustrated

Well, after a week of running the kitchen at camp, and a week of travel after that, I managed to gain back the 4lbs I had lost.

It's very frustrating. And what do I do when I get frustrated? I eat!

I'm finally home and ready to get back on track. Today I'll shop for groceries, get the laundry done, plan "back to school shopping", and plan my exercise routines for next week. The kids don't go back to school until the 27th, but I need to start running and exercising before then. It'll just be easier once they're all gone during the day. Mentally I think I'll be more successful with a quiet house and no one standing at my elbow "Mom? Mom?" Momming me to death.

And think how clean my house is going to be!

The biggest challenge is going to be putting correct eating (portions) with the exercise. I'm finally getting more sleep and drinking enough water. I also noticed that the week I stuck to my training menu I lost weight--and it had me eating 400 more calories than I normally eat. Perhaps my body is storing the fat because it's in starvation mode?

My trainer has me on 1400 on non exercise days and 1800 on workouts. Before I was aiming for 1200 and 1400. That's a big difference. The trick will be healthy 1800--lean protein, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.

Wish me luck!

Fit Days July 12-13

I'm really enjoying these workouts, especially now that I've learned how to switch out the ones with equipment that I don't own. Each exercise has several listed that work the same muscles, so I just substitute ones that don't require machines or other stuff I don't have.

The work out still take about 30 minutes to do, and I'm still "aware" of certain body areas for the day or two afterward. However, some of the exercises I'm doing more often are getting easier. I guess it's time to buy the next set of dumbbells.

Day 12

Day 13

Fit Days 7-11

So far the hardest part about this workout routine is the reporting. :) The exercises are easy enough for me to do from home, and if anything pops up that I don't have equipment for I just substitute a different one that hits the same muscles. Every day I'm aware of a different body part. There have been a few that I don't think I ever used before this workout.

Last week I lost 1 pound. That's a start right? Now to just keep moving in the right direction.

Here's what I did (I'm not listing the stretching at the end. Please remember to slow down and take several minutes to stretch all the areas you've just worked):
Saturday the 7th--Swimming laps (I'm not a swimmer, so my 400 yards was good)

Monday 9th--
Warm up was swimming.

Tuesday 10th-- 

Wednesday 11th--
Warm up was 5 minutes jump rope

Fit day July 5th & 6th

I skipped my workout on July 4th in favor of sleeping in and then enjoying the day with family.

Then I was down right lazy on day 5, so today I did both workouts minus the running. I really need to get up earlier when it isn't so hot outside so I can start running again.

I'm still using 3 lb and 5 lb weights. 5 as much as I can, and 3 when I don't know if I can lift my arms any more.

Day 5--

Day 6--

Getting Fit Day 2

Warm Up
Run up and down my stairs for 4 minutes

Work Out

Weights I used(cause I'm weak!):
1-- 5 pounds for all sets
2-- none needed
3-- 5 pounds for all sets
4-- Didn't do--no equip.
5-- 3 pounds, my shoulders are weak!
6--didn't do
7--double 3's first two sets, double 5 third set, one 3 and one 5 last set

Cool Down
Quad stretch
Side Bend stretch--you know, sitting on floor legs wide, bend side then other side to stretch leg and side.


Menu for the day--
Breakfast--Egg white and spinach omelet
Snack--1 slice whole grain bread, 1 tablespoon almond butter
Lunch--potato salad with Canadian Bacon (lower fat mayo)
Snack--apple, mozzarella cheese, tomato and wheat crackers
Dinner--Black Bean Burrito (black beans, red onion, salsa, low-fat sour cream on small size tortilla
Snack--yogurt

I'm Alive and New Training Program

Things have been going great for me on the writing goal side of life. The fitness side, eh, not so much. However, thanks to my lovely writing community, I won three free months of an online personal fitness trainer.

The first month has gone by and although travel prevented me from really sticking with it, I already feel stronger and better. Today marks DAY 1 in my mind of seriously getting down to work. There are no travel plans, camps, or other distractions in July and therefore NO EXCUSES.

I'm really excited about it. The program comes with menus and shopping lists! I'll blog more about it in the future, along with some of my favorite recipes, but for the sake of time, today I'll just post my workout--that I've already completed!

Run--30 minutes at moderate pace.
Arm reaching crunch--1 set of 20
Dumbbell crunch--3 sets of 30
Exercise ball tuck--3 sets of 20 (my balance makes this hard!)
Leg-tucked crunch--3 sets of 25
Plank--3 sets of 1 minute
Jump rope--3 minutes fast



Starting weight July 2, 2012--174lbs

Goals day 7-9

Sunday--Rest

Day 8--Drove for 7 hours and then did 30 minutes Zumba with my mom and sister (then company showed up so we stopped).

Day 9--Went to the Y and managed 30 minutes deep water aerobics before getting kicked out for bad weather. Walked around the track a few times to dry off before leaving.

We plan to go back tonight and I'll run on the treadmill.

Goals Days 4-6

Day 4--Rest day--did errands all day.

Day 5--Sort of a rest day--did laundry and cleaned in the morning did a little water aerobics. A very little.

Day 6--Ran 4 miles, walked 1, went to the pool and did 20 minutes aerobics for inner thighs and treading water in deep end.

Total miles run this week: 11

Today is Sunday, so no plans. Tomorrow I'll get up early to run before driving with the kids to TN. :)

Sludging through training

I don't know where I'm supposed to be, but I'm not there. Last week we traveled and the training ground to a halt. Well, not really because the four days before we started traveling we had company. Who liked to take us out to eat every night.

Oh, it was SOOOOO good. All kinds of yummy foods we don't get very often.

But now I'm going to pay dearly for it at the gym and on the streets this week. With only 19 days until the 1/2 marathon we are really going to kick it into high gear.

Tomorrow we start boot camp. We bought new running shoes on Saturday, we have a print out of a Hal Higdon training guide (for the planned full in April), and I've bought groceries to do the phase one of the South Beach Diet for a week to jump start us once again.

We've  never made it the whole two weeks of phase one, but week one is the one that breaks you of the sugar cravings and that's all we've ever needed.

This week's training plan (the gym classes might change because I don't have the Feb schedule yet):

M--3 mile run, step class
T--5 mile run, pump class
W--3 mile run
TH--Cross train (bike at the gym), pump class
F--5 mile pace
S--10 miles (I think I'll be walking some of this, but the goal is to just cover the distance this week)
Sun--rest and take lots of ibuprofen.

Training Week 4?

Ah, I am losing track, but I wanted to report some success. On Saturday, hubby and I went out for our 6 mile run. It was cold. The wind was biting. We didn't want to do it. But we did.

We had to walk, or I should say hubby was nice enough to stop and walk with me when my hips started to hurt. Going through the pain of this run made me vow once again to run consistently through the week so the long run is more enjoyable.

Today we woke to at least 3 inches of snow. And it kept snowing off and on all day. I had that sinking feeling of "I'm never going to win." Then at lunch time, hubby left to go for a run.

What?! Last time it was me being crazy and running after the snow storm. But last time it was icy. Hubby pointed out that the ice was coming tonight, but right now it was soft snow. He ran, and then I ran.

I pretended I was running on the beach. That's what it felt like, except my nose was cold and I was wearing two pair of socks instead of a swim suit. My run was short, just 2 miles instead of 4, but at least I went out there and did something.

I call it a success. Now to do the 30 Day Shred tomorrow and hope for clear roads to run on Wednesday.

How are your fitness goals going?

Week 2 Training and Eating Habits

"He who fails to plan, plans to fail."

Unknown, but possibly Ben Franklin

The holidays are officially over and it's time to buckle down and get back on track. I've found that I eat better when I'm running because I don't want to waste all that effort. I also eat better when I keep track of what I'm eating. However, it's too late to fix it when I write everything down at night after eating it.

Last night I sat down and planned all of my meals for the next week and looked up the calories for each. I didn't plan my snacks because I never know what will be around in my house, but I did write down how many calories I had left over after all three meals so I would know how much good be used for snacks.

I found this great Weekly Food Diary online and sat down to fill it out. Then I decided I wanted to make the chart available to you, so I opened publisher and created my own. This is what it looks like blank.

And this is what my first week looks like all filled out.

You should be able to click on it to see it bigger. All I have to do is look to see what I'm eating, mark my water glasses and make sure I do the listed exercises.

I tried to add the file to my google docs and chose the share with everyone option. Let me know if these work.
Publisher File
JPEG

Training Day 3

Today was better than Monday. I did the same course and cut 4 minutes off my time. I ran more and didn't hurt as soon as I did last time.

Someone mentioned how much they respected me and Nathan for starting from scratch every year to train for our half marathon. It was a compliment, but it has a flip side. If I'm starting from scratch each year, that means I quit at some point, right? And I'm making it harder on my body than it has to be.

I'm not setting New Year's Resolutions. They never work for me, but I am setting my goals. Goals can change, but they still give a guideline for where I want to go and how to get there.

Goal for 2011:
Don't Quit
How I'm going to accomplish it:
1. After the marathon in April, cut down miles if needed but don't STOP.
2. After April, sign up for more races as incintive to keep running.