Tag Archives | workouts

Countdown to Christmas Challenge

By on December 2, 2010 in challenge, consistency/commitment, holiday, R2P4, working out

First off, if you haven’t had a chance to read my post on self-discipline and you have a moment, check it out.  The comments and some conversations I’ve been having with myself (yes, in my head, you gotta problem with that?) are making me think a lot more about that topic.  So there will be more to come on that in the near future!

Countdown to Christmas Challenge

Moving right along, it’s time to recap my week last two weeks for the Countdown to Christmas challenge hosted by Scale Warfare and Bella!

You may remember the rules:

1. Choose a specific, realistic goal that you can achieve by December 31st.
2. Post weekly updates (you choose the day) about your progress.
3. Add the challenge button to your blog post/sidebar.
4. Decide on a gift (reward) that you’ll give yourself when you meet your goal.

The first week of the challenge, I set my goal, which as a refresher is:

  • My goal: commit to and follow-through on four structured workouts/week from now until the end of the year.  I have some travel time coming up, along with the normal scheduling challenges that we all face during the holidays!  So my goal is to make at least four structured workouts (and by structured, I mean “official” and not just a walk – trainer, weight lifting, running, gym, something) a priority in my schedule no matter what.
  • I will post updates about my progress on the challenge on Thursdays each week.

Week before last, I added a couple more goals:

  • Be in bed by 10pm Sunday through Thursday nights.
  • Get up no later than 6:30 Monday through Friday mornings.
  • No snacking on the couch – the only eating allowed is a planned, pre-plated meal.
  • Shut my pie hole by 8:30 p.m. every night – no more eating!

As you all know (unless you are both living in a cave and have your head stuck in a hole), last week was Thanksgiving.  What you may not know is that two other circumstances combined to throw me for a loop – I got sick and Seattle got hit with a snowstorm of epic proportions (okay so it was 4 inches, bite me), making driving anywhere difficult.  Not because of the roads, but because Seattle drivers don’t know how to drive in snow so they create more of a hazard than the snow in the first place!  (Sorry I’m not sorry…you know it’s true!)

So the last two weeks I completed a sum total of…drumroll please…4 workouts.  Yep, you read that right – my weekly goal is 4 workouts, but I only fit in 4 workouts over the last two weeks.  So not what I had hoped to report!  But I am not beating myself up over it; instead I am working on getting back into my workout groove.  I’m confident that next week I’ll report a minimum of 4 workouts completed from today until next Wednesday.

The holiday, time off work, and being sick also threw my sleeping schedule off completely.  So I’m back to struggling to get up at 6 or 6:30 a.m.  Today Kim even gave me an awesome early morning wake up call…and I promptly rolled over and went back to sleep until 7:40 a.m.  This all ties back to the self-discipline post from yesterday, and what I’m trying to figure out is if getting up early is an important goal for me right now.  I think it is, but I am going to be doing some thinking and writing over the next few days so I can be sure I’m doing it because I want this to be my goal, instead of because I’m trying to jump on a bandwagon that’s not really important for me to be on.  So, as I said, more to come later.

And since I am all about the silver lining, I will share that despite my crazy sleep schedule, being sick, a holiday, an unexpected week off work, and being off my game workout-wise…and despite not having my scale to weigh myself in the mornings (something I generally do, it works for me) – I made mostly healthy choices and maintained my weight over the last two weeks.  I count that as a win!

How was your Thanksgiving?  How are you doing with your workout goals this week?

Comments { 4 }

Checking In

By on November 20, 2010 in family, food, holiday, plan, R2P3, working out

Hey y’all, happy Saturday!  I don’t usually post on the weekends but I am usually too busy!  Today I am taking the morning for some me time – I slept in (ahhh) after a late night out, made a great pot of coffee, and am settled in with my laptop catching up on blogs, e-mail, and Facebook.  I didn’t post yesterday so I thought I’d catch you up on what’s going on with me.  Then, as per usual, it will be your turn to catch me up on what’s going on with you!

Yesterday my cousin and his girlfriend flew in from Detroit for their annual tradition of spending Thanksgiving with my family.  But I should rewind to Wednesday night, when my sister called me up to say that she couldn’t pick them up from the airport.  No big – my job is fantastically flexible and my boss neverendingly (technical term) understanding, so it was easy for me to stand in for her and pick them up.  As she went on to tell my why, though, my heart leapt up into my chest.

Apparently that evening, my 8 month old nephew had what his doctor almost casually referred to as an LTI – Life Threatening Incident.  When my sister said those words, I swear my heart stopped for a moment.  (Sidebar: things like that? Terrify me in terms of having kids.)  She had him in a warm bath when his lips started to turn blue.  She handed him to her husband, threw on her robe, and in that short time, my nephew got paler and paler and became unresponsive, his eyes glazing over, etc.  When she described it to me, I thought it sounded like a seizure, with all my lawyerly expertise, you know?  In any case, it lasted for about 5 minutes (!!) and just when she was ready to call 9-1-1, he started to get better.  He eventually took a full bottle, played with his older siblings, and returned fully to normal.

Sis talked to an on-call pediatrician that night who said that babies have incidents like this rather frequently (who knew?!), and that she should keep an eye on him through the night and bring him in Friday morning for a checkup just in case.  This all freaked my sister out beyond belief, as you can imagine – she set her alarm to go off every 45 minutes through the night to check on him.  Took him to the doctor, where he was given a clean bill of health aside from a very mild ear infection.  The doctor says they may never know what caused it (it wasn’t a febrile seizure as he did not have a fever), but that it may have had to do with temperature regulation since he was in the bath.

Anyhow, so color me all shades of thankful and grateful that the youngest apple-of-my-eye is healthy.  So I skipped out of work for a few hours yesterday to go pick up my cousin and his girlfriend (F & J for the rest of this post).  We picked up some food and headed back to my sister’s house, hung out for a while, had lunch, and then I headed back to work.  All the while I’m wearing workout clothes because Thursday I missed my workout (for two days in a row of no workout), so I really wanted to fit one in.  I figured if I walked around in gym clothes all day long, eventually my conscience would force me to the gym!  (See details about wonderfully flexible and also casual employer above!)

I worked until 6 and hit up the gym for 30 minutes of running intervals on the treadmill and 5 minutes of core work.  I’ve been fitting in more and more of these “short” workouts lately and they have been my saving grace!  When life is busy, often our workout is the first thing to go – we think, “I don’t have time to drive to the gym, work out for an hour, shower, and then drive back – that’s 2 hours out of my day!”  Thanks to a gym that’s 5 blocks from my office and the realization that short workouts are still good workouts, I fit in a sweat session and was on my way to my sister’s house (sweaty and unshowered, but still!) in under 45 minutes.

Showered up over there and headed out to my brother’s pub for the evening, where fun was had by all!  And then on the way home?  Hubs said, “Want to go out to eat??”  It was 1am.  But I didn’t have the heart to say no, since he so rarely expresses a strong wish to do something!  So we found an all-night grill for a wee-hours-of-the-morn meal.  I stuck to my healthy-eats-only plan and ordered a veggie omelet with fresh fruit; I ate all the fruit and about 5 bites of the omelet, but I’m just not a middle-of-the-night eater!  So I brought the rest home.  In bed by 2am (ish?), fast-forward to the aforementioned sleeping in, and here I am.

Did I mention I’m wearing my workout clothes again?  J loves to work out so we are going to make time to slip away for a workout sometime today before the poker extravaganza begins tonight.  And if that means I’m all sweat-tastic and gross for the game?  Who cares – it’s all family and close friends and you all?  Don’t judge.  :)

So that’s me – family in town, a slow build-up to the holiday which for me will begin Wednesday morning since I’m taking that day off.  Heading home to my parents’ place where we are hosting a “small” Thanksgiving meal for 45 or so of our closest friends-who-have-become-family.  My plans are to keep getting my workouts in; enjoy the time with the people I love; and enjoy a little bit of the foods I don’t have easy access to the rest of the year.  I am feeling really confident in my ability to make healthy choices.

So…your turn!  What’s up with you?  What’s been going on in your world?  Any fun plans for Thanksgiving?  Or are you grinching it up this year and doing something non-holiday-ish?  Do tell.

Comments { 8 }

Countdown to Christmas Update

By on November 4, 2010 in challenge, consistency/commitment, goals, R2P2, running, working out

Hi friends!  I know, I know – it’s after 4pm and I’m just now posting?!  Let’s just call it a crazy week.  And by crazy, I mean that I just got back from a run.  Outdoors.  In 65ish degree weather.  In the sunshine.  In Seattle.  In November!!  #iminlove  And yes, I just hashtagged y’all in a blog post.

It’s that time again, to recap my week for the Countdown to Christmas challenge hosted by Scale Warfare and Bella!

Countdown to Christmas Challenge

You may remember the rules:

1. Choose a specific, realistic goal that you can achieve by December 31st.
2. Post weekly updates (you choose the day) about your progress.
3. Add the challenge button to your blog post/sidebar.
4. Decide on a gift (reward) that you’ll give yourself when you meet your goal.

Last week, I shared my “homework” with you, which as a refresher is:

  • My goal: commit to and follow-through on four structured workouts/week from now until the end of the year.  I have some travel time coming up, along with the normal scheduling challenges that we all face during the holidays!  So my goal is to make at least four structured workouts (and by structured, I mean “official” and not just a walk – trainer, weight lifting, running, gym, something) a priority in my schedule no matter what.
  • I will post updates about my progress on the challenge on Thursdays each week.

So, how’d I do?  Fantastic! My week, for the purpose of this challenge, runs from Thursday through Wednesday.  I worked out with my trainer last Thursday, did strength training, abs, and cardio at the gym on Saturday, ran an awesome 5K on Sunday, and worked out with Shannon again on Tuesday.  Four workouts, natch!  I know I will do equally well this coming week – I’m already off to a great start with today’s run around the lake!

How are you all doing with your workouts?  Have you set any goals to get you through the end of the year with your commitment to healthy living intact?

Comments { 4 }

Workouts, Deer, and “Hunger”

By on June 16, 2010 in emotional stuff, food, hunger, R1P2, training, working out

Morning!  I can’t believe I cracked my eyes open (for reals!) at 5:30 a.m.!  Those of you who’ve known me for a little while know that I am not an early-to-rise kind of gal!  But it’s senseless to fight it when my husband is getting up and making noise that early, so I just gave in today.  BTW, I am wearing a full-on business suit.  That’s right, heels, hose, skirt, AND jacket!  This chica gets to go to court this morning – wish me luck!

Workouts

So in keeping with updating y’all on my workouts with the HCG, and to keep a record for myself, I’m reporting in on my personal training session from yesterday.  I met my trainer at 4pm at the studio and she proceeded to kick my ass for the next hour, putting me through all sorts of torture designed to look like exercises.  I made it through about 40 minutes of the session and started to feel a little light-headed.  I stopped long enough to catch my breath, paced myself a little better, and made it through the rest of the hour unscathed.  (Unless you count the excruciating pain in my glutes and hammies which is going to make every time I sit down into a special kind of torture.)

So, for a super high intensity workout (my heart rate was hovering around 170-180 for most of the session!), I can see that the HCG probably had an effect.  Instead of doing one hour of high intensity circuit training, from now on my trainer and I are going to do 30 minutes of that and 30 minutes of yoga.  Based on yesterday’s session, I don’t think doing hot yoga right now is a very good idea, so I’ll be revising my revised June training schedule yet again, to be posted later this week.

Deer

Yes this is a weight loss blog and no I did not eat any deer.  I did, however, almost hit one on my way to work this morning.  In the city.  On a busy main street from my neighborhood to the freeway.  WTF?!  It was the strangest thing (and not because I’m not used to deer, I grew up on a teeny tiny island with lots of deer and not hitting them was actually a part of our driver’s ed course) and the adrenaline surge was better than a cup of coffee to jump start my focus for the day.  Which is good because I’m going to court (did I mention that?).  Not so good for the deer, who I’m sure was more scared than I was!

“Hunger”

My post yesterday about confusing food with pleasure has been the topic of conversation with my husband and with my girlfriends that I went hot-tubbing with last night.  It seems that confusing food and pleasure, or feeling like you can’t experience the latter without the former, is a pretty common thing.  I’m sure I’ll do more posts about this in the future, but I wanted to answer Runnergirl’s question today.  Part of her comment said:

That is exactly how I have always left. Like if I couldn’t enjoy a social occasion properly, I feel left out. At the weekend when I was making sure that I had healthier food, I did feel deprived, because I wanted the taste of bacon and sausage; and instead I made myself do with porridge.

What I don’t get, and that you seem to, so I want to know your secret – is how do you separate the two? Is it just a matter of going along to social occasions and talking to yourself to make sure you don’t feel left out or deprived? Cos, usually when I try and do that it has the opposite effect.

I don’t know if I really have an answer to this, so much as just some thoughts that might help. I’ll start by pointing out something you said: Like if I couldn’t enjoy a social occasion properly… I think it’s important to examine that statement closely.  Why can’t you enjoy a social occasion properly without using food to do so?  Are you going to events you don’t really want to attend and the food is the only thing you enjoy about it?  Can you train yourself, over time, to refocus on the people you’re with, your surroundings, how it feels to be out and about with your husband, etc.?  Realizing that you are telling yourself that you can’t properly enjoy the experience without food is an important step.

Here are my other thoughts:

First, I enjoy being with my family and friends pretty much no matter what we are doing.  We occasionally do non-food-related activities together, and those are just as much fun as anything else!  So I think part of why Sunday was so much fun is that there was a gaggle of people, the kids were adorable, the weather was beautiful, and it was the kind of day that you can’t not enjoy!  The food was a big part of it for everyone else, but not partaking of the food didn’t remove a crucial element of the day for me since the rest of it was so much fun.  Truthfully, I rarely attend events that I won’t enjoy apart from the food, because life is too short.  And if I’m at a party, for example, and not having fun?  I’ll just leave early.  I haven’t been using food to enjoy events I would otherwise hate.  And now, I’m learning how to not make food the center of my enjoyment in life, period.

Even more importantly, I am on a strict protocol and I am seeing results.  I know that if I go off the protocol, I will not see results.  The HCG protocol has to be followed pretty precisely otherwise you’re injecting yourself and spending money and spinning your wheels for nothing, and that’s just a drag.  I’ve spent wayyyy too many years spinning my wheels, working hard a lot of the time, and not seeing results.  I don’t want to jeopardize the results I’m seeing now, so there’s pretty much no food in the world that’s worth it to me to go off-protocol.

Third, I am only going to be on the protocol for a short period of time.  It’s not the rest of my life.  If I want hot dogs and birthday cake, I can have them in moderation when I’m done with the protocol.  There will always be more hot dogs and cake and pizza and ice cream; it’s not like the world is in short supply.  So no matter how badly I might want something now, I am not saying “no” forever; just “no” for now.  I’m choosing to delay gratification in favor of a bigger, more important goal.  (And, in truth, the hot dogs and cake on Sunday would not have been that appealing to me had I been off-protocol, but I would have eaten them anyway.  Out of habit, out of solidarity with everyone else there, whatever.)

So those are some of my thoughts.  There’s no secret.  I do think that being on HCG is unique in that it removes hunger from the equation AND it removes most of your choices about food as well.  What I have been left with is my urges to eat, which I know are not about hunger right now, but other things.  And that’s what’s allowed me the clarity and insight to start working through some of this stuff.

HCG Update

HCG Start Date: 6/1/10
Starting Weight: 252.5
VLCD  Starting Weight: 255
R1P2 VLCD Day 13: 237.6
Total Weight Lost: 14.9 pounds

Comments { 8 }

May Goals Report & June Goals

By on June 3, 2010 in food, monthly goals, weight

Whew, it’s already June 3 and I’m just now posting my May recap and June goals!  It’s been a busy start-of-the-month, but it’s all good stuff so who can complain?!

May Goals Report

You may remember that in May, I decided to start setting monthly goals for myself.  Check out my May Goals post here, where I said I would:

  • Complete at least 5 out of 6 weekly planned workouts.
  • Track everything I eat 6 out of 7 days.
  • Eat 5 servings of veggies and fruits each day.

So, how’d I do?  Actually, I did remarkably well!  I averaged 4.5 workouts/week, so not quiet to my goal but still pretty good.  I tracked my food about 50% of the time, so that’s really where I struggled.  Actually, though, I don’t know if I can really call it a struggle, because I didn’t really try all that hard.  What I did do was plan my day’s food in advance and pack my food for the day the night before or the morning of almost every day this month.  I counted my calories either in my head or on a sheet of paper so that I knew I was eating within my target range, and I was about 90% of the time.  So, partial success and partial failure on that goal.

My goal to eat lots of fruits and veggies I hit out o’ the park!  I did choose this goal because it was a lob over the plate (lovin’ me some baseball metaphors here, people!) and I knew I’d do well with it.  I’m happy to say that I did!

June Goals

I liked having these goals and referring back to them every week or so to keep myself on track, so I’m definitely going to continue this practice.  Here are my goals for June:

  • Stick to my planned workouts (see my June training schedule here);
  • Get two massages (no one said goals had to be hard, people!);
  • Cook fresh dinners at least 3 times/week;
  • Plan and pack my food for the day 4 days/week;
  • Only eat added sugar once/week.

That last goal is going to be the toughie for me, but after my cookie episode this weekend I know that my body prefers it when I keep my sugar intake to a minimum.  So I’ll be going without sugar in my morning coffee, I’ll be forgoing a daily sweet snack of dark chocolate, and I’ll be sticking to one serving of something sweet per week.  I don’t know if I’ll stick to this forever, but I do know I can do it for one month, and in the spirit of listening to my body, I’d like to give this a fair shake.

Weight Update

I’m happy to report that, due to some diligent healthynessification (yes, that’s a word, you got a problem with that?!) lately, my weight has finally begun to return to it’s pre-TOM-crazy-unexplainable-gain status.  I am currently weighing-in daily and I’m excited to see the numbers go down as I continue working my food and workout plans.  I’ll probably start posting monthly weigh-ins pretty soon here, even though it’s going sllllooooowww like molasses in January.

What are your goals for this month?  How do you decide which goals to choose for yourself?

Comments { 5 }