Labor Day Challenge - Week 1 - Friday

WORKOUT D:
I did these 2 as a pair, with 45 seconds of rest at the end of the pair:
deadlift 5x5x85
tricep kickback 5x5x10
I did these 2 as a pair, with 30 seconds of rest at the end of the pair:
good morning 3x8x45
Bulgarian split squat 3x8x10

I tweaked my neck/shoulder after my workout. I was feeling a little energetic and did a chin up, but I was a bit too enthusiastic about it. Now my neck is sore and I can't turn my head well. I'm glad I'm done lifting until Monday.

No cardio today. We went to the farmers market again. I actually paid attention to the pedometer and it is actually 50 miles, round trip. I'm not so sure it's worth it in terms of money, but it's a nice drive and I know stuff will be in stock for the most part, and good quality. Today I bought green peppers, onions, zucchini, peaches, plums, grapes, cucumbers, romaine lettuce, and apples. Oh and nectarines. I've never had those. I figured the plums were such a hit with me, it was time to try another fruit. It's the grapes though, that got me. I can't stop eating them! I should have bought more.

While we were there, I split an ice cream with my son. It was good times. Then we came home and played some Wii Sports.

I'm not logging food. The ice cream isn't much of a factor - I know I ate about 135 calories worth. It's the grapes. I swear, these are the most delicious grapes I have ever eaten. I can't eat too many or they will give me a belly ache, but I'm definitely not stopping to measure every time I sneak a few from the refrigerator. Fruit is definitely an issue for me - it makes me even hungrier, even if I pair it with protein. I'm going to have to come up with some "rules" for eating fruit. My pre-workout apple& cottage cheese never gives me a problem, but one grape sends me spiraling out of control. Do not like!!!

Four cups of coffee and 120 ounces of water.

Labor Day Challenge - Week 1 - Thursday

Last night went from bad to pretty bad - after blogging, I also ate a Snickers bar and a hot dog. But now it's behind me and I'm done dwelling on it.

WORKOUT C:
I did these 2 as a pair, with 45 seconds of rest at the end of the pair:
negative chin up 5x5xbodyweight
dumbbell shoulder press 5x5x15
I did these 2 as a pair, with 30 seconds of rest at the end of the pair:
dumbbell pull over 3x8x20
standing calf raise 3x8x6

No cardio today. I was in a funk and really should have done something high energy. I went for a walk with my son instead.

8:15 AM - apple & cottage cheese

11:10 AM - plum; My first plum. I think I like them.

12:15 PM - turkey bacon, avocado & light cream cheese omelet w/ onion, green pepper & salsa

3:55 PM - black beans, ground turkey & avocado hummus on romaine lettuce wraps

7:35 PM - black beans, ground turkey & avocado hummus on romaine lettuce wraps

8:00 PM - green pepper slices

Four cups of coffee and 120 ounces of water today.

Calories - 1690
Carbs - 151 (39 fiber)
Protein - 121
Fat - 72
C/P/F Ratio - 34.7/27.9/37.3

Labor Day Challenge - Week 1 - Wednesday

Today's workout was Tae Bo Amped: Fat Burn Accelerator. It wasn't as impressive in application as it was when I previewed it yesterday. I barely broke a sweat - 50 minutes and 237 calories. However, it's low impact and I need that right now for my shins. I don't know if I'll do this one again next week or save it for times when I really can't go crazy jumping and running around.

I was a bit sore yesterday in the chest/shoulder are from the introduction of flys to my routine. Or is it flies? Meh. Today, the quads are sore. I don't know if it's from adding 2 sets of squats to what I was doing, the way I changed the position of my legs, or adding step-ups and/or SHELC to the mix. Yesterday was a pretty heavy leg day, for sure. I'm not super sore, but I can definitely feel it!

7:15 AM - banana & cottage cheese

10:45 AM - tomato, avocado & light cream cheese omelet w/ onions, peppers & salsa

1:15 PM - romaine lettuce wraps w/ cheese, black beans, onions, jalapeno pepper, garlic, fresh white corn; I'm not sure what that would be called - a salad? salsa? relish? It was delicious, I know that much. I contemplated adding a dressing to it, but it was just fine the way it was. Hummus or guacamole would be fabulous on it though!!

2:30 PM - homemade protein granola bar; I don't know why I'm so hungry. I wasn't really in the mood for vegetables and it turns out, these are even better straight out of the freezer. But I'm still hungry!

5:40 PM - chocolate chip cookie; I couldn't log this in my tracker, as I have no idea how I made it many months ago (it's been in the freezer). I was hungry while I was cooking dinner, and I'm really disappointed that I reached for this instead of a healthy alternative.

6:10 PM - more romaine wraps, vegetable risotto

And this is where I lost it...two more cookies, a big bowl of frozen bananas, jalapeno poppers. Meatloaf with cheese. On a hot dog bun. Those damn cookies triggered this. I should have grabbed the plum.

Four cups of coffee and 120 ounces of water today. No numbers today. Obviously.

Labor Day Challenge - Week 1 - Tuesday

I was hungry after I blogged last night and I ate a huge bowl of...wait for it...green peppers! WTF? I was craving green peppers. Go figure. Hayley told me that I'd crave fruits and vegetables after eating them for a while. Oh, and some cheese.

WORKOUT B:
I did these 2 as a pair, with 45 seconds of rest at the end of the pair:
barbell squat 5x5x80
dumbbell hammer curl 5x5x20
I did these 2 as a pair, with 30 seconds of rest at the end of the pair:
SHELC 3x12xbodyweight
dumbbell step up 3x8x15

My shins were still a bit tender this morning and I wasn't sure I wanted to do my tabata or regular HIIT, but I ultimately decided to do a low impact tabata. So, 5 minutes of Turbo Jam Twist and 41 calories later, it was behind me and I was worn out LOL It's perfect though, for low impact cardio, and my legs thanked me very much.

I was much too lazy to create my own audio file for HIIT and tabatas. Fortunately, I found a few good ones on the Internet. I've been using the tabata by Workout Muse mp3 for a while (which I got directly from the composer, I think), and I found an entire album - well 4 tracks - on Amazon. It's $3.96 to download. It's also on iTunes, but almost $10. Forget that.

For free, you can download Beevs Interval Timers, which is a WinRAR file full of different mp3 intervals. It's good stuff, but I still prefer Workout Muse.

I have officially set my SparkPeople tracker to maintenance mode. I am not going to try to lose any more weight until summer is over. Nothing is going to change in terms of tracking and eating right and exercise - I just don't feel like dealing with weight loss right now. Lift heavy, eat clean(ish). That's my motto. Actually, it's just an excuse to eat more, and I can live with that for a few months. I've also changed my calories burned goal from 1500 to 500 per week, until my shin splints are healed.

7:15 AM - apple & cottage cheese

9:40 AM - avocado & cream cheese omelet w/ onion, green pepper & salsa

2:20 PM - salad w/ lettuce, tomato, onion, peppers, black beans & sun dried tomato dressing

3:55 PM - mozzarella string cheese & peppers

5:45 PM - salad w/ lettuce, onion, peppers, black beans & sun dried tomato dressing

9:15 PM - jalapeno poppers; I haven't made these in forever! They were very good. I didn't have nearly the number of poppers I used to have in my binge days.

Two cups of coffee and 120 ounces of water.

Calories - 1652
Carbs - 184 (44 fiber)
Protein - 105
Fat - 61
C/P/F Ratio - 43.1/24.5/32.4

Labor Day Challenge - Week 1 - Monday

Well, this is Week 1 of 8 (I think) for my last program before a vacation. For Labor Day, we're heading home for a wedding. My husband is best man and I haven't seen these people in a while (some since my own wedding 10 years ago), so I want to look good. When we leave, it will be my first break (aside from Sundays) from exercise in 24 (or maybe 26) weeks. It will be a very well deserved long weekend off!!

The plan, Stan, is to lift weights 4 times a week. I hit up the Baby Got Back program again because I enjoyed it the first time I did it. I did pick some new exercises this time around, and I'm satisfied with how I put it together. On lifting days, I'll follow up with a short Turbo Jam workout OR high intensity interval training/tabata OR a Spartan workout - you know, a 100-1000 rep circuit (though, it will be a while before I'm able to do the 1000 rep circuit). On days I don't lift, longer Turbo Jam or Tae Bo workouts. I'm aiming for 750 calories burned through cardio per week.

WORKOUT A:

I did these 3 as a circuit, with 30 seconds of rest at the end of the circuit:
lying barbell press 5x5x65
seated calf raise 3x20x20
one-arm dumbbell row 5x5x30
Then this on it's own, with 30 seconds of rest between sets:
lying dumbbell fly 3x8x15

My original plan was to follow up with Turbo Jam 20 Minute Workout, but I'm so tired of DVDs that I took the day off from videos. I didn't have a timer ready for doing HIIT, but I did have my tabata mp3, so I did 1 tabata. I warmed up with a light jog for 30 seconds, then did the 20 seconds work/10 seconds rest (I jogged): jumping jacks, football drills, punch/hop combo, Turbo twist, repeat, jog for 30 seconds. It was only 5 minutes and I only burned 35 calories, but research suggests that they payoff comes in the 12-18 hours after the tabata. I'm too lazy to find the links, but you can Google it! I promise, tabatas are the shit! I've done them before and they are always good for an ass kicking. I want to work my way up to a Sweet 16, or 4 tabatas in a row.

The best part about today's workout? From warm up to post-tabata cool down tool 45 minutes. The workout itself, weights and tabata - half hour!! No more of the 80 minute bull. Never again!!!

Oh, and I have shin splits. Fun.

I made the 40 mile trek to the farmers market again. I did stop at the one closer and at first it didn't look like they had much in terms of variety, quantity, or quality, but when I drove back through I stopped in again and they had more out. This one is only a couple miles from my house and I think I'm going to start going there every week, and the other one every other week (because they do have more variety). While I was at the far away market, I treated myself and my son to a piece of peanut butter chocolate fudge. They don't have fudge at our rinky dink produce stand here on the beach! It was my son's first time eating real fudge - the peanut butter protein fudge I made does not count as super decadent. He was blown away!! It was nice to sit there and share that with him, and I never once thought of the calories or anything like that. I just enjoyed it.

However, on the way home, I had a few fleeting thoughts of "Ok, I've blown it for the day - I might as well keep up with the junk!" Fortunately, by the time I got home, I was no longer thinking those silly thoughts, and looked forward to the rest of the meals I had planned for the day, none of which included junk food.

6:50 AM - apple & cottage cheese

8:25 AM - apple & yogurt; The apple I bought at the store yesterday was so big, I just split it into a pre and post workout snack.

10:30 AM - Somewhere around this time I had the fudge. It wasn't sample size either.

12:15 PM - salad w/ tomato, green pepper, avocado & sun dried tomato dressing

3:50 PM - kabobs; I didn't measure anything on these. they had red onion, green & red peppers, red potatoes & cube steak with a honey glaze.

5:45 PM - coleslaw, Rice Krispies w/ 1% milk & banana; I'm thinking the fudge was a bad idea because I've wanted to eat all day. Oh, and I know it's a weird combo of foods.

Two cups of coffee and 120 ounces of water.

No numbers today.

Jillian Kicks My Butt - Week 10 - Sunday

Well, this is it - the last official day of my Jillian challenge. Lots to cover today.

First, some very exciting stuff. As I've mentioned before, I wanted to become a Turbo Kick instructor, so I'd have access to more workouts. I've accepted that I'm not instructor material, so I've done the next best thing. Chalene Johnson recently launched to Turbo Kick Fan Club, which lets regular Janes order Turbo Kick dvds. You can order the dvds without being a member of the club, but one of the benefits of being a Fan is 20% off. So, by signing up for automatic shipments every 2 months, I get 20% off each volume. I think each volume has 2 workouts that are 50-60 minutes long. I AM SO FREAKING STOKED!!! I mean, I can hardly contain my excitement. I cut back my Netflix plan to accommodate this. I'm so excited LOL

I did another Rockport Fitness Walking Test today, to determine my VO2 max. I did 1 mile in 15:00 (71 calories), and my new VO2 is 42.55 mls/kg/min. Well, it's not really new - close to last time, when I didn't write down the decimal places. Still pretty darn good. I cut 15 seconds off my time, and my heart rate was lower. [/geek]

I'm sure you're waiting impatiently for my "results" of this challenge. I am rather disappointed to report that I only lost 2.5 pounds in the last 10 weeks, and I'm still up half a pound from my Week 6 low. I weighed in at 130 pounds this morning. However, the tape measure showed some very good results (in inches lost):

0.5 around neck
0.75 around the girls (sadly, I don't have the decent rack I used to have)
1.25 around the rib cage
1.5 around the waist
0.75 around the belly (the one area I'm desperate to get rid of!)
1.25 around the hips
0.5 & 1 around the thighs
The other sites were the same, or within quarter of an inch.

I also did a 7 site body fat test with the calipers. Apparently, I used them wrong when I did the 3 site test on myself last month. I had my husband take 3 measurements from each spot (and he was using them correctly), and got 18.96450438404287% body fat. I am not 100% confident with the result, but I think I'm going to do this weekly so my husband can practice and maybe I'll get a better picture of what's going on with my body. The 3 site test, using the numbers my husband got, gives me a result of 19.22659281837059% body fat. Another site with 7 measurements (though it only asks for one measurement from each site - the other averages three measurements) gives me 19.40243% body fat. I used the highest number measurement for each site. So, lets call my body fat percentage 19.5 to be safer. Of course, there is still some measurer error in there but I won't be THAT much of a geek.

Oh, and post-challenge pictures are up on my weight loss pics web site.

So, considering these results, I'm not sure I want to cut my calories just yet. I was going to, to try to lose more scale weight but really, I don't want to be miserable cutting things out of my diet. Not right now. It's so much easier in the winter. For now, maintenance is fine. I love the foods I've been eating, even though I haven't had my homemade bread or granola bars in a week. For once in my life, I'm happy with food, and not in the emotionally damaging way the binges made me "happy" at the time.

6:20 AM - apple & cottage cheese

10:50 AM - omelet w/ onion, green pepper, avocado, light cream cheese, & salsa

2:30 PM - tuna salad w/ avocado, tomato, mozzarella cheese, green pepper & sun dried tomato dressing

4:45 PM - homemade coleslaw; I was going to have this with dinner but I was so hungry!!!

5:05 PM - black bean burgers w/ tomato & mustard on romaine lettuce

6:00 PM - yogurt; I tried the Yoplait Thick & Creamy Cinnamon Roll on a whim and hello, new favorite yogurt! I am really picky about my yogurt and this is about perfect for me.

Two cups of coffee and 120 ounces of water.

Calories - 1649
Carbs - 159 (42 fiber)
Protein - 120
Fat - 65
C/P/F Ratio - 37.6/28.2/34.2

Jillian Kicks My Butt - Week 10 - Saturday

30 seconds rest between exercises and sets.

pull/chin up 3x5xbodyweight; 3 actual, 12 negatives
plank 3x60s

barbell hang clean & press 3x5x45
double crunch 3x12

dumbbell stationary lunge 3x5x30 per side
push up 3x12

Turbo Jam Cardio Party 3 & ChaLean Extreme Recharge - 70 minutes and 482 calories.

8:50 AM - apple & cottage cheese

12:35 PM - tilapia, broccoli & cauliflower w/ sun dried tomato dressing

3:10 PM - banana & mozzarella string cheese; Not the meal I planned but I had to grab something quickly as we headed out the door.

6:30 PM - black bean "meat"balls w/ mustard, cauliflower & green peppers

8:00 PM - frozen banana w/ sugar-free chocolate DaVinci syrup & peanut butter Capella flavor drops

Two cups of coffee and 120 ounces of water.

Calories - 1554
Carbs - 197 (41 fiber)
Protein - 132
Fat - 36
C/P/F Ratio - 48.2/32.2/19.6

For this week's calorie differential - 11361 calories for my BMR + 2429 calories through cardio = 13790 calories burned - 11814 calories eaten = a difference of 1976, or 0.56 pounds.