AND I'm officially in the 170s!! I'm so excited! I know I only lost about two and half pounds in two weeks, but I don't even care. That's still a great loss, it still puts me closer to my goal, AND it puts me in the 170s so I'm MORE than pleased with that!
Now the gym scale puts me about 3 lbs "heavier" than my home scale so hopefully (fingers crossed) I can be in the 170s on the gym scale as well come Monday. Just need to make sure I get my workouts in this weekend and I should be golden.
Anyway, I'm stoked and I couldn't be happier to be in the 170s! Oh and I'm only 3 lbs away from my HALFWAY mark! Holy smokes! Three more pounds and I'm HALFWAY to my goal! I can't believe it!
If you can see under the yellow check it says 175.5 lbs, the halfway mark!
Thanks for reading and especially thanks to everyone supporting me along this journey! It means so much to me and I hope you all know how good it makes me feel to have so much support, so thank you again!
I'll be back with a Biggest Loser update early next week. :)
I promised blog updates, so here it goes. Biggest Loser is going well.
The first weigh in I was 187 lbs and after the first week I weighed 183 lbs, so I lost 4 lbs in a week! I was EXTREMELY happy with that number. It was actually MORE than I expected. Since I've already been dieting I'm sort of at a "disadvantage" these first couple of weeks. Other people that have not been eating right will lose water weight right after the bat, and drop pounds fairly easy these first few weeks because of the "shock" to their system. It's not really a "disadvantage" though because eventually everyone will come into their stride and things will even out so I'm not worried about. Anyway, because I've already been eating healthy and don't care much water weight, I expected to lose about 2 lbs, so I was MORE than happy with 4 lbs.
Monday was the end of week 2 and the third weigh in. I was SUPER nervous this week because I had an awful week this week, and not for the reasons you may think LOL I didn't overeat or splurge or cheat. It was actually the opposite. I was sick all last week and barely ate 500 calories on most days, and believe it or not, when I DON'T eat enough, I don't lose weight. Many of you may have heard of "starvation mode", but if you haven't, it's when you don't eat enough and your body believes there isn't enough food for you, so it stores/saves fat deposits for you to live off of, so you actually hold on to the weight. Anyway, with barely eating and being sick and not having the energy to workout, I feared the worst on the scale Monday night. My goal every week is to lose at least 2 lbs. That's what I'm okay with, but I feared I would either lose only 1 lbs, stay the same, or possibly even gain weight. I was really nervous...
So the outcome?
On Monday, February 13th I weighed 183 lbs....
And this past Monday, February 20th I weighed 181 lbs, for a total of 6 lbs lost!
So I actually did it! I lost the 2 lbs I wanted to lose and was thrilled, which in turn, set me up for an awesome workout!
After we weigh in, we get a little briefing and head to the gym for a workout. We start by walking/jogging/running laps around the gym. I'm not sure exactly what we we're supposed to be doing, but I tried to do a fast jog/slower run. I didn't want to burn myself out trying to run as fast as I could, but I at least wanted to get a good jog in. I actually surprised myself at how long I could run for. I really suck at running honestly LOL I kept up the same pace the whole time. A nice brisk jog and I kept it up for I'd say....8-10 laps.... I'm not entirely sure, but it was a shit ton more than I could've run in middle school or high school gym class that's for sure LOL
After running we stretched and split into groups for stations. I actually like stations because it helps me to pin point my strong suits and weak links. For example, I think my endurance is great. I feel like I can maintain cardio exercises for a really good period of time, BUT my arms/upper body strength...needs a lot of help. I find a lot of the times I'm not physically winded or tired, but my freakin' (almost said fuckin'...oh now I said it...) arms give out. Sorry, but the shit pisses me off. I'm not winded, I'm not tired, but my muscles just can't do it. (I'll elaborate on why this pissed me off SO much later in the blog....) Anyway, upper body....needs work. We did sprints, push ups, dips, squats, suicides, sit ups, ab work on the ball, and shuffling with a ball. I think I did really well if I do say so myself.
After that our "workout" was over, but our trainer proposed a challenge. The prize was a punch card (classes at the gym are $6 a piece or you can buy an eight hole punch card for $45 good for eight classes obviously). So the prize was a free punch card. I try to go to kickboxing once a week and pay the $6 per class, so I wanted the card. There were about 40 of us and the challenge was optional. Try it if you want, walk laps if you don't, but like I said, I wanted it. Oh. The challenge itself? Drops.
Oh em gee, I could go off on a whole tangent about drops, but I'll try not to. If you don't know what a "drop" is, here's a very short demonstrative video. Enjoy :)
(That was the closest thing I could find to it since he's getting REALLY low, but really you actually drop all the way to the floor and then come back up.)
Anyway, that was the challenge. Do as many of those as you can. Trust me. It's hard. Anyway, you had to be getting all the way down and you had to be going at a decent pace. No stopping, resting, going super slow etc.
I don't really know how many people decided to do it because I wasn't looking around, but I think quite a few. Well within maybe 30 seconds (my times could be off because it seems like time goes so SLOW when you're doing shit like this LOL) the trainer called that it was down to five people (me being one of them! Yay!) and maybe 10 seconds after that she said there were only THREE of us left! I was stoked. I could see the other two people to my left and the rest of the gym was either walking laps and cheering us on or watching and cheering us on. Either way, everyone was cheering us on. That was awesome. We just kept going and going and I was DYING. I tried to peek over and see how the other two were holding up. One person looked like she was in about the same place I was LOL, but the other person, he wasn't stopping LOL I did one final jump up and my thigh muscles just gave out from under me (see why I get so pissed about my weak ass muscles!) Anyway, I was out. I started to walk out to the edges and everybody clapped for me. Sounds corny, but it felt awesome! We do them in kickboxing class sometimes and I don't even do REAL drops. I usually just do squat thrusts and don't even go all the way to the ground, so to do them correctly and do that many, I was super proud of myself.
I joined the ranks of the crowd and cheered the remaining two competitors on and they kept going for a good 30+ seconds I would say. They decided to split the prize so they each got half a punch card.
Even though I didn't win, I still felt awesome. It was a great personal victory. It's amazing when you realize what your body can actually do and what YOU are really capable of. It's a great feeling. :)
So I left the gym feeling absolutely elated, which of course has set me up for an awesome week this week. It's Thursday now and I've done wonderfully this week. Yesterday I went to kickboxing class and I'll be doing my "Shed and Shred" a few more times this week, hopefully setting me up to be in the 170s at Monday's weigh in!
Be back with more updates after next week. Thanks for following!
In order to "amp up" my journey a little bit, I have signed up for a Biggest Loser style "challenge" at the local rec center/gym. It cost $50 to join and is a 12 week program. "Contestants" meet every Monday night at the gym for a weigh in and workout, but of course nobody is eliminated like on the show. Everyone is free to stay the whole time. Weights are recorded every week and of course there is "homework" like on the show. It's up to each contestant to keep a food journal and to workout an additional 2-3 times per week or more.
Last Monday February 6th was the beginning of the first week. We got weighed in and my official starting weight on the gym scale was 187 lbs, which is about 3 lbs off from my digital scale at home, so for the purpose of the Biggest Loser update posts, I will be using THEIR weigh ins, so it may not match up with my home weigh ins on Fridays. Anyway, my starting weight was 187 lbs and then we got a lot of info and went for our first workout. There were about 40 some people so we did a circuit workout and of course some of the stations were pretty challenging. I can tell my upper body and core strength are definitely my weak points and need the most work.
So my plan for this challenge is to of course go every Monday (except I'll be missing this week since Will is in town and we're all going to Blackhawk for a few days). I've already made arrangements to email my food and exercise journal to the trainer and then I worked it out to where I can get weighed in Saturday morning. Anyway, my plan will be to attend the weigh ins and workout at the gym, eat healthy of course, and workout at home at 3-5 more times during the week. I have found that I like to mix it up at home and alternate different DVD workouts. I have a variety of choices ranging from the 20 min "30 Day Shred" to the 35-45 minute Biggest Loser workouts to the 70 minute "Extreme Shed and Shred", so depending on the time I have to workout, I have several choices to fit those time slots. I also plan on going to the kickboxing class on Wednesdays as often as I can, and my "goal" for this 12 weeks is to get to 160 lbs for a loss of 27 lbs (gym scale numbers LOL)
Oh, and you may want to know what you get for being the Biggest Loser... A free one year gym membership, which, with their new "pricing" would include some classes FOR FREE. See before the kickboxing class was $6 for non member and $4 for member, but now it's free for members, which would be sweet. And the ad in the paper also said something about a weekend stay in a hotel in Denver, but in the past the prize has been $200 and someone else said something about that, so I'm not quite sure what the second half of it is, but the gym membership alone sounds good to me. Anything else would be a perk. LOL And hey, even if I don't win, the classes are $6 per class and you get a free workout every Monday as part of the program, so one free workout per week times 12 weeeks would've been $72 and I paid $50 to join, so even I don't win, I still saved $22 on workouts right? LOL But let's not think about me NOT winning ;)
So like I said, Monday was the first day and I will miss next week, so I will try to update with my weight etc. every week as part of my Biggest Loser Challenge series, so look for my update next week!
Well my poor blog has been neglected for some time now and several people have asked me for a blog update and a few others have asked me what I'm doing to lose weight, so I figured it was time for a post....
Let's see... I left off in November 2011 and things were going great. Unfortunately, mid-late November my weight loss journey had to be put on a temporary hold due to medical issues. During this time I was unable to exercise and became extremely stressed. I gained about 12 lbs back.... This is as far as I'll go into details, but I'm totally fine, nothing to worry about it, and I was once again cleared for exercise in January 2012.
So.... January 2012 I started fresh on a "mini journey" to get back to where I was in November. The first part of January I was still unable to workout, so I just got back on my normal diet schedule, which I've changed up a bit. Diet wise I like to count calories of course, and also watch fat, sodium, and sugar, BUT I did some research and also began monitoring my carbs. I already knew that too much sugar had a large impact on my ability to lose weight, but upon talking to a few people who also have hypothyroidism I learned that many of them watch carbs altogether (sugar included). I tweaked my diet to include carbs in moderation at the end of January and have had great success so far. I still eat SOME carbs, but I try to monitor my intake and eat whole grains. Also, I'm not JUST doing a "low carb" diet. A lot of people on Atkins etc. ONLY watch crabs and don't look at anything else they're eating. Yes bacon is low in carbs, but if you eat a pound of bacon for breakfast....you still ate a pound of bacon LOL Eggs too. Eggs are a freebie on a carb diet, but one whole egg is damn near 100 calories, not to mention the cholesterol. Yikes. So, I monitor my carbs, but I still eat healthy foods and balanced meals, and like I said, I love it so far.
And to monitor all this I use MyFitnessPal (link on side bar or click here). I've mentioned this site before, but since some have asked what I'm doing I thought I'd put it in again. It's an amazing site and is super simple to use. You make a username/profile, enter your stats and goals, and it tells you how many calories to eat and tracks everything (including exercise) for you, so you know where you're at each day. There is also an MFP in the Android Market which makes it super easy to use from you phone too. Aside from having your own profile, you can also had friends and MFP will keep them updated for you whenever you track your food, exercise, or weigh in, which really keeps you motivated. If anyone is using MFP or starts using it now, my username is Chris_bee05, so go to members, look me up, and add me.
And lastly, as far as workouts go, I've added yet another workout DVD to my ever growing collection...
Workout DVDs... LOL
Latest addition.... Jillian Michaels EXTREME Shed and Shred. Yeah. I had no idea what I was getting myself into with this. I thought the 30 Day Shred was hard. Psht. Please.
I believe this is the newest of her DVDs and it is a 70+ minute workout when done in full. There is a 7 minute warm up and 7 minute cool down, and the full workout can be split into two levels. Level 1 being approximately 20 minutes (without warm up/cool down) and Level 2 being an additional 40 minutes (again without warm up/cool down), so when done in its entirety about a 70 minute workout.
Now I like to write like I know what I'm talking about, but in fact, I have yet to finish the entire workout. I've been doing it for about a week and only tried to do the full thing just yesterday. I think I was about 10 minutes from the end when I skipped to the cool down. I was beat to shit. LOL But I've definitely made progress with it. As you can see in my pic I have 3lb and 8lb weights. Part of the "modifications" in this workout is to just not use weights. Still have to do the moves, just don't use weights. Nice modification huh? LOL Hey, but it makes me push, so it's a good thing. Anyway, yesterday I used the 8 lbs weights the majority of the time (before I was only using the 3lb-ers) AND I was able to add weights to some of the moves I was previously doing without weights. Not bad for a weeks worth of having the DVD. :)
Me today! (Aug 2011 - Feb 2012)
And thankfully, as of last week, I can say that I am finally back to where I left off in November. I have lost all the weight I gained back (and them some, but y official "weigh in" isn't until tomorrow, so we'll see....) I've updated "Stats" page at the top to reflect my journey over the last few months if anyone wants to get an idea of my weights over the last 5-6 weeks, and I of course added my new pic to my "Photo Gallery".
I have big, big plans and goals for this year and I plan to hit (maybe even surpass) my goal weight. At first I saw the gain as a huge set back (which in a way it was), but if anything I'm more committed than ever because gaining those few pounds back made me realize just how far I've come and exactly what I stand to lose. :)
And now....if you proceed to the NEXT blog, I have a new series I'd like to introduce....
