03

Jul. ’12

Eating Healthier

My weigh-in was on Sunday but since it was during that great part of the month when I’m bloated and whatnot, my measurements were not significant in any way shape or form. Nor was my weigh in. And since I’m currently fighting a crazy bad cold right now, (in the dead of SUMMER no less!) I started thinking about my eating habits.

I know that I’m trying to eat healthier but I FAIL in two areas:
1. I DO NOT drink enough water.
2. I have HORRIBLE portion control issues. Mainly with pasta dishes and salad dressing.

So, I was on the internets this weekend and came across some pretty amazing products which I decided to go ahead and purchase to help me with portion control (as opposed to busting our measuring cups/scales, etc):

No more worrying about pasta portions!

Perfect for all my salads!

Notice how you can measure the servings inside the ladle?

I’m most excited about the water bottle. Purchased at Walmart for $4.00. Just draw the times of the day and you’re on your way to drinking 64oz of water requirement!

I should be getting the meal items delivered today, yay! What do you use to help with portion control?

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25

Jun. ’12

Tweet Tweet..

I’ve finally given in, largely in part of the Beachbody Coach Summit in Vegas this weekend, and have joined Twitter! I have very little idea what I’m doing but don’t forget to follow me! If you’d like me to follow you back, you can leave a comment here and/or let me know you found me on my blog so I can follow you back! Thanks! :)

PS: Speaking of the Coach summit, they’re having an awesome special for 2013 and I’ve officially signed up! It’ll be my first time in Vegas baby! Woot!

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25

Jun. ’12

Shred Schooled me.

Last week was the first time I did Les Mills PUMP: Pump & Shred. Coming in from Pump & Burn, I didn’t originally think that it would be that much harder.. and boy was I wrong.

When I first started the workout I had to pause it halfway through, switched over to the 5 lb weights and felt my ego drop. I did a couple of lifts with the 5 lb weights and decided that I needed to suck it up and pushed through the rest of it. I was sweating up a storm. Oh.. did I mention this was only the WARM UP?!

There were 8 different tracks to the workout:
1. Warm Up                    2. Squats
3. Chest + Push Ups    4. Upper & Mid Back aka Clean & Press
5. Legs                             6. Shoulders
7.  Abs                              8. Stretch

During the first day on Monday, I was looking forward to the clean and press. The problem was that in Burn, C&P were only down maybe 3 times total and on track #4, it was done about 12 times! (I’ll check the specifics today when I do it again.) I was actually yelling out in pain during this track. I ended up working out for 1hr 2 minutes.. and it’s a 45 minute workout.

I was very sore the next day and pushed through LMP Combat but as Wednesday approached, I was able to do the workout with less pausing time. Well, once Friday came by, I was able to get through the warm up without having to pause it through. I was able to lift 5 lbs for tracks #6, 10 lb weights  for tracks #1, #3, and.. 15 lbs for #2, #4, AND #5 by Friday!

I’m also loving the music selection for the tracks and before I go workout out today, here is one of my new favorite ones:

 

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18

Jun. ’12

Foodgasm..

I just had one. Tonight the kiddo and I were going to make mini pizzas but wanted to make something healthy since I’ve been working out and can see the caloric count on everything I eat now. I used Hungry Girl’s Foldits as the base instead of the pre-made pizza dough. My problem was that I had spent a bit of time on Pinterest looking at absolutely mouth water recipes and I really wanted to try something new. Something unique. Something simple. And something with my available kitchen ingredients.

I  had seen quite a few items involving avocados so I knew immediately this was a must. I didn’t want to use traditionally boring mozzarella cheese and remembered my friend HIP had given me a brand new block of goat cheese last week. My regular go to for marinara, Traditional Prego Sauce, was also out of the question. I was craving ripe  tomatoes with a bit of zest and remembered I picked up a jar of  fresh salsa at the store this weekend, (cheating, I know but it’s freakin’ delicious!), so I was basically good to go.

So let’s recap:
Dough= Hungry Girl’s Foldits
Pizza Sauce = fresh salsa
Motz cheese = goat cheese
Topping 1 = Oregano
Topping 2  = fresh ( I cut into pieces) avocado
I preheated the oven to 375 degrees and we began to make our own pizzas. The kiddo looked over at me and literally said, “What are you doing over there?” and I just laughed telling him that I honestly had no idea. I baked the pizza for about 8-10 minutes, enough to make sure the kiddo’s cheese had melted and set it down on the counter for a few (approx. 3 minutes) and added the basil.

Once I had the actual concoction in front of me, I went ahead added the diced up avocado, took a bite .. and my mouth exploded. Instant foodgasm. Honestly? I was extremely tentative  at whether or not I would be able to take more than a bite of it but all of the ingredients worked so perfectly well together. I was fighting with my mouth as I ate the pizza because I didn’t know whether to keep eating or pause to savor the moment. It ended up being a mix of the two.

So here are the photos for your enjoyment! Please let me know if you try it out! :)

Fresh out of the oven!

UPDATE: I showed this to Oso and he says it looks delicious. He brought up a good point and wanted to know if I had named this delicious treat. I have no idea. Hmm.. :D

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17

Jun. ’12

LMP: Results Week 4

So, I forgot to update this on time but I’m pretty ecstatic at my results. I am officially done with  Phase 1 of Les Mills Pump and I lost a total of −2.8 lbs and −11.5″ overall. WOW!

End of Week 4, Phase 1!

I know where I went wrong. I need to change my eating habits more and definitely need to increase my water intake. My body now craves Shakeology in the morning and I’m pretty happy with that since it’s something that honestly fills me up and is incredible for me.

Here are the updates on my some of my goals thus far :

  •  −8 lbs by July 1st, 2012. / -2.8 lbs down, 5.2 lbs to go! (I don’t know if I’m going to reach this one or not but I’m still pushing through
  • DONE! -10 inches (overall) by July 1st, 2012./ −11.5″ (overall)! Woot!
  • -5 inches (from hips) / −3.5″ inches down, 1.5″ inches to go! (There’s a slight possibility I could get this one completed this week, yay!)
  • -5 inches (from belly) / I measure 2 parts of my belly, above my belly button and at my belly button. I’m going for −5″ on both areas. I’ve lost −2.5″ inches in both areas (-5″ inches total), so 2.5″ inches, (5″ inches) to go!This is one that might will be completely doable before July is over if I keep things up properly.

Originally, I thought that I had placed some pretty tough standards/goals for myself but I’m seriously slowly knocking them down! I’m happily shocked and while that number on the scale still drives me nuts, it doesn’t compare to the wonderful changes occurring in my body.

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16

Jun. ’12

29 days later..

A funny thing happened along the to reaching day 29 of my Les Mills PUMP journey..

I actually got arms!

When you start a program they tell you to take photos on Day 1. Front view, side view, and back view but I decided to add a few more. One of the extra photos I decided to take was of my ams, so I stood in front of the mirror and prepped myself for what I thought was the worst. But honestly? It was worse than that. And after I uploaded the photo, I stared at it with tears in my eyes wondering what in the world had happened to my body? How could I have let it get so bad? :(

And so, Day 1 began. I found myself struggling in the beginning. I could barely lift the 5 lb weights placed on the barbell, how was I going to get through this? But I pushed forward. Last night I was looking at the photo I posted the kiddo took of me. I kept looking at my right arm wondering why it looked so.. normal. I stood in front of the mirror, rolled up the little sleeve on my arm and snapped the photo. I wanted to compare it to my first photo and hoped desperately that I had not trashed it. As I looked through my photos, a sigh of relief came over me as I clicked on it. Curiosity got the best of me and I decided to see when I had taken it. It seemed so long ago. But there it was: May 16, 2012, it was exactly one month ago since my updated photo was officially taken after midnight. I uploaded both of them and my. jaw. dropped.

I was hoping for maybe a little bit of difference on my arms but in actuality, it was so much more. I quickly placed them together and as I began writing the captions on them I realized that I wanted to share this photo so badly. But I couldn’t. The before photo was horrible. I’d be so embarrassed! I paused for what it seemed like hours debating back and forth whether or not to share this photo with my FB family/friends and the rest of the world. I finished up the captions and decided to get a good night’s sleep and think about it in the morning.

The morning came and it wasn’t that much clearer to me. I called Oso and we were discussing it  (he was trying to bribe me, to be honest with you) but I wasn’t really paying attention to him. I started thinking about the reasons I was doing this. I began to work out to make a change in myself. I want to show others that if I can do this, so can they. But this is harder than it sounds as I have to be willing to put myself out there for others to see my progress. The good. The bad. And the ugly. I had to basically prepare myself, suck it up, and just let go.

*smile* So here it is, my results 29 days into the program:

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15

Jun. ’12

Needing Motivation..

Today was a rough day for a workout. I just wasn’t “feeling it” but as we all know, it’s during these days we have to push even harder to make sure we get things done, right?

I got a new swimming top yesterday since I’m taking classes on Thursdays. I took a photo and while was surprised at the progress I’ve made, but when looking over it today.. all I see are flaws. All I see is how much work there still needs to occur and it was pretty depressing.

More than anything it’s because of that stupid number on the scale. No.. I haven’t weighed myself this week and trust me, it’s taking all the will power in my body not to do so but I just want it to go down so badly! So.. Here I go. To push myself and do my workout in hopes that my body keeps changing for the better.

———————————————————-

Ok, I’m going to be honest, I didn’t think working out would leave me with such an amazing feeling afterwards. I did a triple workout: Hardcore Abs + Pump & Burn + Flow = 460 calories burned.

I know that I could have burned off more calories with a cardio workout but.. early this week I began adding an extra 5 lbs to my weights to make it 30lbs and I could barely lift it. Today? Lifting the weights was much easier! And this is only the 3rd day this week I was lifting that amount of weight! So, yes more calories burned with cardio but the muscle I’m slowly developing can’t be traded for anything. :)

I’ve been doing well and drinking a Shakeology every day this week. Tomorrow is my last workout of the week. And the month. AND the first level of Les Mills Pump. Today was the last day I will be doing “Pump & Burn” because on Monday I move on up! Since I did an Insanity workout instead of LMP: Sports Attack, I’m going to it tomorrow as opposed to my originally planned Turbo Fire workout. It’ll be my first time doing it too.

While I was doing the chest track of Pump & Burn, the kiddo snapped a photo of me working out. I’m using the 10 lbs weights here and silently trying to find a way to keep pushing forward. I am so stoked to see how much my arms have slimmed down during the past four weeks, it’s seriously incredible and much more than a tape measure can show.

 

Pushing forward and doing more is what will separate you from the rest!

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