Hitting the pavement again!

Lacing up my running shoes and getting back out there yesterday felt so good. I've been looking forward to this all Winter.

I went out there on a whim, it was wet and cold and near sundown, and I had a bowl of chili sitting in my stomach, but I just decided to go for it.

And I'm really glad I did. I set my iPod to the Week 6 Day 2 intervals (10 mins jogging, 3 mins walking, 10 mins jogging), thinking that I could run at least 10 minutes straight, and if I didn't need the 3 minute break, GREAT! I'd keep running through it. I resigned myself to take it slow, steady, to not get winded, to take drinks out of my water bottle and to not give up.

And I did it. All 23 minutes of running, I DID IT. And, by some stoke of luck, I ran FARTHER in those 23 minutes than I did running 25 minutes back in December.

?!?!?!

It was mind-boggling, it truly was.

Until I remembered, I've lost over 15 pounds since then! Plus, Zumba has probably increased my leg strength, endurance and breathing efficiency! I am ecstatic! I was not expecting to do as well as I did and I was practically jumping for joy at the end.

Today I did Zumba sculpt and tone. My quads are sore but it didn't affect my dancing much. I'm thinking I could do Zumba three times a week, plus running 2-3 times a week, and then troupe on Sundays.

I don't want to push myself too hard, but I'm thinking about running my first 5K race this summer and I'd love to do it in under 45 minutes.

More later.

Back on the Zumba Train

Did the cardio party dvd today, which could be day 1 of the fat-loss program, but I don't know if I'll stick like glue to it. I did, however, KILL the routines during the workout. I felt like I was giving one hundred and ten per cent with each move.

I was a sweat mess at the end, and I went through my entire bottle of water faster than usual, but I felt GREAT. Burned at least 450 calories to boot.

I cannot believe I've lost as much weight as I have. I don't really see any big changes on myself, but I know I will once I get closer to my goal weight.

Scary thought, weighing as much as I did in high school. But I am determined. Steady weight loss, focusing on learning healthier habits that will last me a lifetime - that's the way to do it!

Weigh-in tomorrow, and I feel good about it since I ate well today and had a killer workout.

4 weeks and 4 days until Saqra's Showcase. 11 pounds? Doesn't seem like too much of a stretch :D

Toodles!

Weigh-in Sunday!

And I am DOWN 1.5 pounds! That puts me at my goal of losing atleast a pound and a half each week of March/April.

Definitely looking forward to jumping back into Zumba this week, maybe doing some strength training moves to work on my arms a little (the dancing doesn't really target the arms as well as I want to target them).

Loving the results so far. I was 194.2 back at Thanksgiving, and now I weigh 176.5.

Amazing. That's almost 10% weight loss in four months! The mini-wall is gone and I will stop worrying about it! I'll just stick to my calories and exercise regularly and I will continue to see the results!

I don't feel so bad about yesterday anymore.

I do wish, however, that I hadn't taken that day off from Zumba. It's so much fun, and it burns calories like crazy! Today I did the Zumba-live DVD plus the flat abs workout, for a total of one hour and ten minutes of intense dancing and a grand total of 600 calories burned.

Breakfast, with pudding, was less than that, so I'm back on track as long as I don't go overboard today. I'm thinking I'd do a salad for lunch, maybe some left over tortellini pasta... oh yes. Delicious.

I've also looked up the ways in which drinking water helps the body lose weight and it is tremendous! The entire body is made mostly of water, so getting enough is vitally important to overall health. It's hard to stick to a plan to drink more water, and even I have failed at maintaining high water-consumption in the past. But I'm tapping into my true grit, remember, so I am determined to do everything in my power to reach my ultimate weight loss goal of being 145-150 pounds.

Baby is awake! Time to grab some fuel for both of us!

3 Fat Chicks

3fatchicks.com is a forum and article website I joined earlier this week. It's filled with women who are all in the same weight-loss boat. Everyone started at different points, is at different places in their journey, and all have different goals. But everyone is so supportive, and willing to offer advice or encouragement when needed. I have since posted a couple times, and even went so far as to join a challenge group called "Cinco de Mayo Caliente 10-Pound Challenge". There are over ten ladies who've joined the group so far, and we have all pledged to lose ten pounds by the fifth of May this year. Five weeks, approximately, and, though my original goal of being 165 by the end of April is a little steeper than that, there is no law that states I can't lose MORE than the pledged ten pounds.

I've been stuck at a mini-wall with this 178. Yesterday was my mother-in-law's birthday and I ended up going about 400 calories over my budget. I wouldn't have gone over if I had done my Zumba workout for the day, but I skipped it because I was too busy with the party.

I feel pretty gross today, but got right back on track with the diet (except for the cup of chocolate pudding I ate with breakfast today but it wasn't so high in calories! I plan to dance off everything just as soon as my son naps, or even before then.

Tonight we are going out to the restaurant for our weekly double-date, and I will have to see where my calorie count stands before I say whether or not I'll be eating anything there.

Anyway, I just wanted to post about the new site I found. I'm really excited to lose ten more pounds and be part of a group doing the same thing. Accountability! It's a beautiful thing!

I'll post more after my workout.

Zumba Day 6

I was struggling through today's sculpt and tone routine, and decided to forgo the flat abs altogether. I put into it all that I had, though! That's what I love so much about Zumba -- it's not all technical weight-lifting moves that make your muscles shake and take a lot of effort. It's never boring, it's fun to put as much or as little "flavor" as you want into the moves, and the music is really motivating.

Burning 440 calories in 50 minutes is not bad either!

But I'm struggling with my calorie counts big time. That is, I'm having trouble getting enough without eating fast food.

Today I had an egg, ham and cheese bagel with a little Smart Balance spread, plus a cup of blueberries in Greek yogurt sprinkled with organic, low-cal granola. In total, it was 500 calories. For lunch I made a simple salad with 2 cups of spinach, 2.5 oz grilled salmon and a tablespoon of Italian dressing. Only 175 calories and I am full again! After the high-impact Zumba, I still have over 1100 calories I need to consume for dinner and snacks.

Really hard, unless I get Taco Bell at the end of the day. I feel like eating too little is hindering my weight loss a little. I've only lost .2 pounds in 2 days and after eating 1200 calories and so much cardio I feel like I should have lost more.

Oh well. More later I suppose.

Waiting for my son to nap...

So I can do Zumba Day 5! I know, that was supposed to be yesterday but I did a P90X workout with Matt instead.

Not nearly the calorie burn I would've got dancing, but my arms and shoulders got a great workout!

I've still resigned myself to not skipping a day of this Zumba program so I am doing day 5 today. I haven't weighed myself today, but I weighed myself yesterday and I had gained back .4 pounds. That still puts me at 178 and my BMI is exactly 27 (my healthy weight, 145, puts me at 22.5 BMI-wise). That's still overweight. My mini-goal is to be at 165, which puts my BMI in the "healthy" range of below 25.

Well. Doesn't look like little man is headed for a nap. I'll have to dance around him.. he sometimes joins with me, shaking his arms and spinning in circles, but most of the time he ignores me and plays with toys or winds around my feet and becomes a major tripping hazard. haha

So. I'm off to my sweat session be back in an hour or so!

Back! I love dancing so much! Even with sore arms I was able to rock out in front of my TV - even my son cooperated and let me burn those calories!

I'm hungry now... really should have had a quick snack before dancing but decided to just pop in the DVD and go.

Hopefully the scale shows me a number to be proud of tomorrow - I know the scale will tend to go wonky when you start an exercise program but I'd like it to keep trending downward the way it has been this week :D

More tomorrow.

Zumba Day 3

I weighed myself this morning to find that I have LOST .9 pounds! That's almost a whole pound gone in one day! That's even with a black cherry mojito last night, with a grilled chicken sandwich from the restaurant. *Note to self: don't order the hot sauce on the sandwich next time. Get something much more mild.

I consumed around 1700 calories total, and burned about 560 for a net total of 1,150. I could have eaten a bit more and would have been fine. I need to remember to get closer to my goal each day because too little calories can have a negative effect on the body. It's hard to do when you're really trying hard to make sure every calorie you eat is filling and good for you. I never felt hungry yesterday.

I am so excited that this is working. It really is. I was so happy, I made sure to prepare a healthy breakfast for myself, and then I did Zumba Day 3 without even considering skipping it. It was about 45 minutes and my iPod says I burned 390 calories. Tomorrow is a rest day, but I have two hours of dance troupe plus walking to do tomorrow so I'll be logging some exercise to make up for it.

Our next major performance is April 30, which is 40 days away. If I stay on track and lose 1.5 pounds per week, that's a little more than 15 pounds total.

Losing 15 pounds by then would make me happier than anything! I know I've set pretty steep goals for myself before and I rarely reach them in time, but I have tapped into my inner grit and I'm not going to look back and think, "well, I could have done a lot more than I did." No. I want to look back and think "that's why I was so successful - I gave it my all every day."

Because I am going to be successful this year. No whining, just doing.

Grit

Apparently there is a personality trait more important than brains, talent, or ability. People who have the ability to gut it out - to set a far-reaching goal and drive relentlessly toward it, tend to be more successful in everything they attempt.

This makes sense to me. If you never give up, even if you get bored or you lose interest etc., you're going to reach your goals. If you want something bad enough, not even adversity will hold you back, and the trait that does it for you is called grit. It trumps IQ scores, fitness level, etc.

So if you have a goal, tap into your inner grittiness. Some people are born with it; if you weren't, don't worry, you can cultivate it. The first step is to write down your goal and be specific. So instead of saying "I want to lose weight", I'm saying "I want to lose 30 pounds".

The next key is to make sure you're passionate about whatever you're trying to achieve. It's about doing something because you want to - because you truly care about it.

Visualization is the next important part. By imagining yourself attaining that goal and being successful, you make the whole process more "real" and can help you suck it up and keep going. It helps you realize that you WANT to reach the goal and feel like you accomplished something.

Optimism is the last piece of the grit puzzle. Being pessimistic can drag down your spirits, make all your efforts seem in vain. By keeping your head up and viewing the whole process positively, you're less likely to give up after experiencing a few setbacks.

To stay positive, try recording your successes. By writing them down, you can look over them easily if you ever feel like quitting.

I've decided to take all this information to heart. I can be gritty!

Zumba Day 2

Wowee! Zumba kicked my butt today! If I weighed 150 pounds, I would have burned around 530 calories, but since I weigh 30 pounds more than that *sigh*, I probably burned more.

Adding to that, I had a very filling yet low-calorie breakfast today. One large egg over-medium on a whole wheat English muffin with 1 t smart balance butter. I also drank one cup of coffee with 3 T creamer in it. In all, I logged less than 300 calories in, and 560 calories out. I still have 1600 calories left for today!

Now, this is usually where I tell myself I can go upstairs and make myself something greasy to eat. I'm not going to do that. First, because I'm not hungry and second, because I want to have a drink at the restaurant tonight. I've been craving it ever since I saw it in the menu two weeks ago - a black cherry mojito. It's probably between 250 and 350 calories. Add in any wings or appetizers I put in my mouth, and the calorie count could easily go over.

So I am going to look up the restaurant's menu and make my decision BEFORE I get there. This is an excellent tip for anyone trying to lose weight. Decide what you're going to order and count up the calories before you go. Then, don't open your menu so you're not tempted to order something you weren't planning to!

More good news for me: I lost the .4 pounds I gained over the weekend! And I lost .3 pounds more than that! Go me!

Time for a snack, more later.

My Weekend in California!

First off I would like to say that I only gained .4 pounds over my vacation. And I don't know how I pulled that off, considering all I did was lounge in a car and snack on cookies, pretty much. Also, all the stress leading up to the performance was probably not very good for burning calories. Doesn't cortisol and all that force your body to store fat?

Don't quote me on that. I haven't done any research about that.

Anyway, this weekend went awesome! Headed out very early Friday morning and picked everyone up. We were officially on the road around 7 am. A couple stops, ate a Subway six-inch for lunch and two Arby's JR roast beefs and a large Jamocha shake for dinner. Arrived at the hotel at 5:45 pm. Decided to grab drinks at Chevy's. Ate a quarter of a huge plate of nachos and drank one blood orange margarita. Went to Wal-Mart and walked around for a half-hour and then walked home.

Next day, walked back to the mall next to the Wal-Mart and had a Subway six-inch plus chips for lunch. Left my Mountain Dew at the hotel accidentally so didn't drink that until later. Went to the festival and walked all around and sat to watch dancers, and danced for ten minutes in open dance at one point, climbed up and down stairs, etc. Went back to the hotel to get ready for performance. Spent the entire time curling my hair. Went back to the festival where we ate dinner, I had a pita sandwich with fallafel and tahini sauce. Watched more dancers and almost left my purse in the audience. Then went backstage to get dressed for dancing!

Doing our performance after so much anticipation was awesome! Nobody did anything wrong, and afterward we received so many compliments! Got lost on the way home, but thanks to one members' smart phone we made it back to the hotel in one piece! Korin ordered pizza while we went to my Mom's room to watch our DVD of the performance, which was mind-blowing!!! and then I had three slices of very cheesy pizza and a mountain dew before going to bed.

We woke up early, and even had to deal with a lost hour of sleep for daylight saving, got everything packed up and was out of the hotel at 8 am. Snacked on my cookies and pudding and bought myself a diet Dr. Pepper. We went through a crazy rain storm mid-Oregon but came through it alright. We dropped everyone off and at 7 pm I got to hold my baby for the first time in days! My mom and Jeri and Dino all used my bathroom before heading out again, and that was the official end of our vacation.

I was happy with everything. No major issues with the ladies in our car or room, and we had a lot of laughs.

Time to weigh myself today and see if I have lost that .4 yet!

...Nope. I didn't. I didn't lose anything. But I didn't gain either! That's wonderful news :) I just have to dig deep, do my Zumba with as much passion as I can muster and continue to make good meal choices like I did yesterday.

Yesterday for breakfast I had one bowl raisin bran with 1/2 cup whole milk. Brunch I had one egg cooked over medium with 1 T shredded cheese over a toasted sourdough English muffin and 1/2 T smart balance butter. I had a cup of coffee with 1/4 cup creamer. For lunch I had 5 pieces breaded chicken with 1/4 cup orange sauce and 1/2 cup cooked jasmine rice. For dinner I had a cup of chicken noodle soup, and I bought myself a diet Dr. Pepper. I did the Zumba sculpt and tone DVD, and worked up a good sweat!

I don't know how many calories in and out I logged, but in my book the day was a success!

Hopefully the work shows up on the scale soon. Saqra's showcase is April 30th and I am scheduled to perform twice! That gives me 6 weeks to lose at least five pounds, hopefully closer to ten. My goal is to Zumba five times a week, drink 6-8 ounces of water before every meal, start running again (set date to start soon!), avoid eating out like it's the plague, and prepare myself good food here at home. If I want to lose 5 pounds in the next three weeks, I can't go over 1500 calories per day.

That isn't difficult if I stay away from fast food. And I've resigned myself to dig deep and keep my eyes on the prize! I'll probably restart my food journal - it helped keep me accountable!

More later, I read an article this week about "True Grit" and I want to discuss how this personality trait could help anyone trying to lose weight.

I haven't lost much...

I'm right around 179.5, but it is a loss since last week so I am pretty pleased! We've been eating out a lot, so I'm not surprised I didn't lose more than a half-pound, though I HAVE been very good about the choices I make while I'm out.

My diet is about to be blown to hell, though. I'm making and packing lots of sugary goodies for the trip. Cookies, rice krispie treats, pudding, wheat thins, circus animals, etc. I'll also bring fruit cups, soup and my water bottle, but whatever else I need I'm going to have to purchase there.

I've got my clothes and hygiene supplies packed, need to charge up all the electronics and pack those, and then, like I said, make my treats to bring...

Hopefully I can stay busy enough to where the time flies by and I won't have a moment to worry about leaving my baby boy, or messing up our routine on stage. Scary.

My best friend is coming with, and I'm really looking forward to the mini-vacation and getting to spend time with her and my mom, and our troupe ladies. They're all very nice, and fun and the 12 hour car ride won't seem so bad I'm sure.

After this trip, I'll be jumping right back on the exercise/healthy eating/losing more WEIGHT horse. Five to ten more pounds by Saqra's Showcase in late April? I can do that!

This time next week...

I will be in California!!! It's so exciting, but also very nerve-wracking. Ive never been that far away from my son and I've never spent the night away from him... (I don't count the three nights he spent in the NICU when he was two weeks old). I feel a touch of anxiety when I imagine him waking up Friday morning and I'm not there, and him going to bed and waking up and I'm AGAIN not there... and then going to be and waking up Sunday morning to discover I still haven't returned... I'm fighting back tears because I know he won't understand the reasons I have to leave, and he's too young to understand that his Mommy will be home in a few days. He'll be okay, but I don't know if I will be.

On the weight-loss front, I did one of Matt's P90X workouts, the shoulders and arms one, with him on Tuesday and I never started the second round of Zumba. Had the best of intentions, but other things got in the way.

I did, however, weigh in at 179.9 Wednesday morning!!!! I'm in the 170s! I haven't been down in this range since my first trimester of pregnancy with my son.

That was two years ago.

Needless to say I'm VERY excited :) I've made up my mind to continue on down from here! I'll have to stick with the Zumba better than I have this week, and I need to keep on myself about portion control and liquid calories.

One week. One week to look my best. I can do it!