Week 7 WI & Halloween

I lost 2 lbs at WI this week, which is really just 1 pound, since I was up last week.

My home scale showed me at 214, but for some reason the gym scale said 215. Oh well, who's counting anyways?! ;P

Last night was nice. Joe and I went for dinner at my favourite restaurant. I had a cider and a delicious Tofu dish with veggies and rice. I ate until I was nicely full, and packed up the rest to go. That was quite a feat in itself because I LOVE this dish!! It's so good I could have easily overate. haha

We were dressed up really nice, and we were going to go to a movie when we got a phone call about a party that was happening. We both kind of felt up to it so we decided to go. We drove all the way home to pick up some wine and call a cab when we got another phone call that it was cancelled - the host was going out instead. So now we're home, all dressed up, and the movie has started.

We decided to just go with the flow and instead we stayed home. We drank wine, carved a pumpkin, baked pumpkin seeds and watched a scary movie. It was a cozy night in :)

Today is very busy for me, I have to plan some lessons for my practicum this week. I'm teaching French, English, and Math. Gulp!

whole new world...

So I discovered today that I can shop almost ANYWHERE! For shirts, at least. I now have shirts from Banana Republic, Ricki's, and a local hippie-type shop :)

This is a whole new world for me... I have been waiting for this day!

Today I bought a long sleeved shirt in an XL.
I bought a tank top in a L.
and... drumroll please!!

I bought a sweater in a MEDIUM.

A MEDIUM!!

I phoned my boyfriend from the store to tell him *I* bought a *MEDIUM!* and it looks very nice!!

It is our 1 year anniversary on Monday, so we are going out for dinner tomorrow night. We are going for Thai food and a movie. I plan to weigh in for bootcamp tomorrow morning instead of Sunday, so that I'm not on salt-overload. haha

I have been way too busy to write. It might be like that until next week. But I'll be sure to keep you updated :)

B: Steel cut oats, blueberries, almond milk and cinnamon
S: Strawberries
L: Vegetable stirfry w/tofu and brown rice noodles
S: Mixed nuts & mandarin orange
D: Split pea & mock-ham soup, crackers

I will get at least 30 mins of cardio before my fitness class tonight, hopefully more. It is amazing how much easier it is to eat right when you pack you lunch and plan you breakfast the night before!! I am going to have a great day for food and exercise, I can feel it :)

ETA: Followed the plan well, but added in a glass of almond milk w/protein powder before the gym. It was gross, but I was hungry. haha

Halfway... dang.

As predicted, I am up 1 lb today.

Today was the Week 6 weigh in. That means I'm half way through the program. I'm a bit disappointed with my numbers to date, but there is no sense dwelling on it. I have been working on an attitude makeover for the new week. I want to WANT to work hard, I want to WANT to eat well. Instead of phrasing everything in a "I don't want to" way, I need to remember why I'm doing this and that I have limited time with this amazing opportunity.

Push yourself! There are only six weeks left!!

I am going to get back to weighing and measuring my food, and work really hard at the gym this week. My Tuesday and Thursday cardio will be a solid 45-60 minutes.

I can do better! I hope to make my goal of 199 by the end of this program. I can reach that if I really put my mind to it.

I will be posting portion sizes and cardio workouts for the week on here, to keep myself accountable :)

The ol' STS routine...

I had a loss of 5.5 last week, which was awesome!

I have been monitoring my weight this week and I can say with much certainty that I will not be showing a loss tomorrow. I think I'll be in the 0 to +1 range.

I missed one cardio day this week, and in its place I went to a friends house for dinner. We had spaghetti, garlic bread, salad, and a small glass of white wine. I know it was carb overload but it was a gathering of my school friends to unwind after a hectic week of presentations and papers. I NEEDED to get out!

I guess this post is just me mentally preparing myself for a 0 on the scale tomorrow, or a small gain. I'm trying to eat light and drink lots of water today (as I always do on Saturdays). I guess I'm not surprised - I never lose weight after a big number. I am going to go on the assumption that this WI and next WI will be little-to-none, and then if something happens, great. My body seems to have a pattern so I should listen and not get bent out of shape over it!

So here's hoping I have a STS tomorrow and not a gain :)

Wednesdayyyy

Today I was a little bit late so I missed about 10 minutes of spin. That hardly matters 'cause I was still instantly sweating when I got on the bike!
I have a love hate relationship with spinning. I love it when I'm not there. I love how it makes me feel after, and how I feel proud that *I* go to spinning. I HATE it when I'm actually there, on the bike, flailing like a madwoman and having Zack shouting "HARDER,FASTER,GO!GO!GO!!"

Blarrrghhh *falls of spin bike*

It is a really busy week for me and I'm just not getting everything done. I have a presentation tomorrow morning, and another presentation on Friday morning. I have a bunch of little assignments due that I've been neglecting. I have been spending WAY too much time just surfing the internet and slacking off.

I feel like I ate too much today, but I didn't. I just ate more carbs & proteins than fruits and veggies. It feels like a poor balance.

B - Steel cut oats with blueberries, almond milk, and sprinkle of brown sugar
S - Apple, 99 cal dark chocolate
L - Bean burrito (hummus instead of cheese or sour cream)
S - Protein drink, kinda regretting this one as it turned out to be a whopping 300 cals!! YIKES. However, it was delish and packed with B vitamins and 20g soy protein.
D - Beans, rice, corn, and lentils mixed together. Small glass of OJ.
S - Triscuits with vegan cheese.

See what I mean? carb-heavy and not enough fruits and veggies. More calories than I should have eaten. Oh well. I will try to do better tomorrow :)

I am feeling pretty great about my weight loss lately. I think those progress pics really boosted my mood - to see that kind of change. I also have been actually enjoying the gym this week.

I stepped on the scale this morning and it is showing me up from Sunday. I know my pattern - Big loss, little/none, little/none, Big loss. So, after that week of 5.5 I'm thinking this will be a little-to-no-loss week. I'm going to put the effort in anyways, hopefully I'll at least stay the same!! I'd like to lose 1lb to crack that 140 lbs down mark :)

Sorry about my disjointed thoughts today. I'm kinda all over the place.

Progress Pic - 139 lbs down

Camping in the rain + rock climbing = not so pretty picture.
However, who CARES! With that kind of comparison shot, I would have posted the pic even if I had spinach in my teeth. LOL!

I've lost an additional 9lbs since that was taken, in September.

Weigh In Numero Cinq

Last week: 221.5
This week: 216.0
Loss this week: 5.5
Loss to date: 15 lbs

Total loss to date: 139 lbs!!

Oh yeah, I rock :)

Today's work out was pretty intense. We ran up and down a steep hill four times. Then we did some body bar exercises, leg workouts with the balance ball, planks, crunches and push ups. Following that we did walking lunges all the way up one of the main streets in the city (yay for cars driving by and watching us, haha) and jogged back. After that we had to run up and down the stairwell in the gym 10 times, each time doing either single step, double step, crossover step, hop. BLAH! I'm sweaty.

All in all it was a tiring work out as usual. My shmancy new exercise watch says I burned 1237 calories, I'm thinking about 60% of those were fat - so really about 742 cals.

I'm going to have veggie burgers and home made (baked) french fries for lunch. I don't even feel bad about it! I can afford it :)

Feels good again!

I took a few days off over Thanksgiving and I think that is exactly what I needed to feel better! The last few workouts I've had have been fantastic.
Yesterday, I did 30 minutes of spinning with my trainer before class. I was drenched by the end - and felt great! Then we did cardio boxing again, which I'm totally loving. We also did a bunch of lunges, squats, push-ups and crunches. It was a great day overall, totaling about 2 hours of exercise.

My new exercise watch says I burned 1580 calories. I was ECSTATIC!! It sure felt like I could have burned that, the spinning itself was SO intense. However, my boyfriend doesn't feel that is an accurate number. So I punched my exercise into Fitday.com and it came back saying about 900 calories. Okay, fine. I was a little less excited about that but it's still good!

I've been doing fine without cereal, and the no carbs in the evening thing was going well... until last night. I had some popcorn. I had plain air popped though, so there was no margarine or salt!! Just plain ol popcorn.

I was going to go to the gym this morning but I couldn't get out of bed. It was just too cozy in there, cuddling my kitty and snuggling my boyfriend. I may go after work, or I may just take the day off. Tomorrow is WI and super-buttkick day at the gym... so perhaps a rest in preparation :)

My home scale is showing me down about 4 lbs this week. I'm eating fresh today and drinking lots of water - fingers crossed that number sticks around for tomorrow! The scale says 217 - Every time it gets lower, I am more bewildered. I am 217 lbs? ME? I am actually at a weight that I don't really consider to be that bad. I'm at a weight where years ago I would have dreamily thought "Wouldn't it be nice?" haha.
I was right - it is nice :)

I have my sights set on Onederland. It's coming up around the corner - I know I'll get there :) In the summertime I set a personal goal of being 199 lbs or less by New Years Day, 2011. I think it can actually happen!!

:)

I am annoyed.
When I'm annoyed, I want to eat.
When I'm annoyed about not being able to eat something, I especially want to eat.

Today at the gym my trainer pushed me so hard on the spin bike and then the weights that I nearly threw up. I had to stop mid-class to rest and drink water. He was getting on my back about it, when my death-glare must have clued him in. If I had opened my mouth to say "I'm going to barf", I would have barfed.

At the end of the class we reviewed my food journal. He didn't even CARE about what I ate over Thanksgiving. He didn't care one bit. However, he did care about a million other things and sent me home feeling pretty ticked off. He has decided that I am to have:

1) No more cereal for breakfast. (He doesn't care if it's healthy like High Fiber Bran, Vector, Just Right, Kashi, or whatever. No cereal period). I am to have oatmeal instead. I don't have a lot of time in the morning so I guess I'll be making oatmeal before bed at night.)

2) No more carbs at dinner. No potatoes, rice, pasta, whatever. He said veggies and protein only, and fruit in the evenings for snacks. THIS one PISSES me off! I don't know why... but it does. I am really good at watching what I eat in terms of portion sizes and healthfulness, but when someone says I CANT have something... it triggers this monster inside that makes me want to go on a binge-spree of said item. So of course, this made me want to devour a bunch of potatoes and bread. Thankfully, my boyfriend talked to me about everything, made me feel a bit better about it, and agreed that he will go without carbs in the evenings too - we'll do it together. I love this man :)

3) Measure my food. He only seems to care about breakfast and lunch portions, though. Uh, okay. Done.

4) Bring in nutritional info for all the weirdo vegan food I eat. Well, he didn't call it weird, but he's been constantly harping at me about almond milk and mock meats. For example, I have tried to explain that almond milk is WAY better than soy milk but he wants proof. Ugh.


I think in addition to all that stuff I was mostly annoyed because he was saying that he wants to see "bigger numbers" from me. He says I'm doing good but that he knows I can do better - that I need to up my cardio and make this little changes in my diet to get better results. I am trying SO HARD! Yes I only lost 9.5 lbs last month. (I realize the absurdity of that statement). However, the calipers showed the 20 lb fat loss, 11 lb lean mass gain. He doesn't care. He says calipers are useless and I should ignore them totally; the scale is what matters.

Grumble.

Confessions of an Indulgent Weekend

It wasn't the vegan pumpkin pie, it wasn't the mashed potatoes, or even the mushroom gravy. It wasn't the fact that I missed two of my workouts because I had two different dinners to attend.

It was this - this sneaky little bugger found his way into my hand. Over and over again:



Damn you, long island iced tea!



I did alright all things considered. I do feel like I ate too much bread, drank too much alcohol, and worked out too little. However, my home scale is being forgiving and only showing me up half a pound. I will be heading to the gym this afternoon for a high-quality cardio session. I will be eating light for the rest of the week.

It's funny - I was starting to feel burnt out with the whole bootcamp thing, but after my positive measurement results and my two days of eating without tracking - I am totally ready to recommit and give it my all again! I feel EXCITED to get working out. It was exactly what I needed.

:)

Month One Stats!!

Bootcamp Start Weight: 231 lbs
Today's Weight: 221.5
Month one loss: 9.5 LBS

Caliper readings, listed as start#/current#

Pec - 23/12
Subscapular - 39/26
Bicep - 14/12
Tricep - 26/20
Kidney - 50/34
Suprailiac - 26/22
Abdominal - 35/24
Quadracep - 52/42
Medial Calf - 23/18

In total I lost 78 clicks on the calipers, bringing my body fat percent down from 33.6 to 25.6!!

Lean Mass Start: 152.2 lbs
Current Lean Mass: 164.8 lbs

Fat on my body to start: 77.8 lbs
Current fat on my body: 56.7 lbs

As you can see, my body fat has gone down significantly and my lean mass has gone up. THAT is why, as frustrating as it is, I've only lost 9.5lbs according to the scale. In actuality, I have lost 20.9 lbs of Body Fat and gained 11.4 lbs of Lean Mass!

I really needed to hear that today!!
I was at the end of my rope. I was sick and tired of working so hard with no good news at the scale. I do feel like this assessment is right, as ALL my clothes fit better (or are too big!) I feel firmer and stronger, and people have been noticing the weight loss. To hear that I've lost 20lbs of fat really sounds RIGHT to me! It just has not been reflecting on the scale because of the 11.4 lbs of muscle and water that I've put on.

The ultimate goal during the program is to lose 10-20lbs of body fat per month, so although the scale isn't being nice, I'm actually right on track :)

Thank goodness for good news!!

So I haven't written in a while. Life's been BUSY.

I had another 0 at weigh in last week. How frustrating!! 3 weeks at the same weight means I'm REALLY hoping to lose something this week. It really sucks to be going to the gym 6 days per week, watching my boyfriend eat delicious snacks, and *licks lips* the wine... oh how I miss the wine... all for a big fat GOOSE EGG at the scale.

I'm trying to keep a positive attitude but it's hard. I'm paying BIG money for this bootcamp, I'm busting my arse. I know I'm not getting as much cardio in as I should be, however, I am juggling this with full time university and a job. I'm only human... my housework has certainly fallen to the wayside over all of this.

I've been trying not to binge eat, because I've been craving carbs pretty badly. I don't know if I'm eating enough protein because I am hungry ALL THE TIME. I have been getting a little mock ham in my lunch sandwich, and whatever tofu/Gardien chik'n/beans, etc that we have for dinner. It's enough to be healthful but I think I need more.

I had a little epiphany the other day. I was dragging my arse to the gym, as I feel like I have been doing all week. Ever since my last post about not wanting to go I've continued to feel like that. Yesterday when I was walking and whining inside my head "I don't want to go" "Ugh, I don't have time for this" etc, a little light bulb went on. By resisting it, I'm simply making it harder for myself. I need an attitude adjustment! Things are much more pleasant and much easier when we embrace them. I have taken the "it's happening, so I may as well try to enjoy it" attitude yesterday and today and I've had 2 really good workouts. Much better than if I got there and started thinking "This sucks, I'm going to just do 20 minutes" or whatever.