Week Five Completed - Weigh In

Finally, I'm seeing some progress! After my mini-meltdown yesterday, I stepped on the scale to see 189 !! That is a four pound loss! Whoohoooo!

And I took my measurements this morning and they are:
Waist: 34.5"
Hips: 41"
Chest: 34"
Thigh: 27"
Upper Arm: 13"

That is a loss of 3.75" from June 2nd and a total loss of 6lbs & 7" since May 16th!

I normally don't weigh in till Mondays, but I just had to share! Thank you to everyone who stopped by and left me encouraging comments yesterday. I really appreciate it!

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View my complete Food Diary HERE.

Week Three Completed

Three weeks completed! Whoohoo, Go Me! As of this morning, I have lost another 2 pounds for a total of four pounds in three weeks. Not too bad.

As I believe I've mentioned before, I don't have that much trouble limiting my calorie intake. But, as long as I don't move I don't lose. Therefore, I have joined some other motivated people to do the Jillian Michaels 30-Day Shred. Beginning today. I must be out of my mind.

On a happy note, my shoulder is feeling a lot better. I have to be careful about over-extending, but I was able to do some good cardio with shoulder / arm movements the other day as well as some pushups without it hurting all that bad. Nothing some Ibuprofen & Icy Hot didn't take care of, anyway.

Yesterday was spent at the creek with the family. Three hours of fishing, hiking, swimming, etc. It was awesome. I am just as sore today as if I did three 45 minute Calisthenic sessions! I'm telling you.. if you want a really good workout, find a body of water that can go from ankle-deep to neck-deep to waist-deep and back to ankle-deep in four steps that is filled with mud, trees, branches, rocks, etc. Get in and walk for two hours. With the current or against it, up to you.

Oh, yeah... don't forget to coat yourself in mud because you forgot to bring the Back Woods OFF with you! (Or just for fun!)

This week's small victories:

1.) Shoulder is feeling better! (Thank God!)
2.) Got in some cardio and calisthenics!
3.) Burned around 3000 calories during exercise this week!
4.) Stayed below my calorie goal all week!
5.) Discovered Melatonin! <---- Helps immensely with helping me get sleep with no Restless!!

This week's goals:

1.) 30 Day Shred starts today! Mon - Sat, Sunday off.
2.) Watch the Sodium intake!
3.) Stay under calorie goal daily.
4.) Decrease smoking.

Want to join me in the 30-Day Shred Challenge? You can get a copy at:

Week Two Completed

OK, so my goals for this week were:

1. Take my measurements (CHECK)
   
2. Research for more healthy food choices (CHECK)
   
3. Get adequate rest (Did My Best!)
   
4. Cardio at least 5 out of 7 days (Nope, my shoulder was in too much pain, plus more below)
   
5. Add circuit / strength training to my workouts (Half-Check)
   
6. Meet my calorie requirements (CHECK)
   
7. Get new measuring cups and spoons to more adequately measure portions (CHECK)

I am only taking my measurements every other week, so next week I will update as to whether I have lost any inches (or millimeters). You can find my starting measurements HERE.

I did research some more healthy foods, but have yet to go to the grocery store. I try to only grocery shop once a week and tomorrow is 'That Day'. I will let you know what I come up with after the big shopping trip.

As for getting adequate rest - I did my best. I think I got to bed before midnight maybe twice this week. But I did get to sleep for a whole six to 7 hours on two different occasions.

Cardio - My workouts this week have been sorry to say the least. I had two good days of a little bit of cardio and a bunch of stretching. My shoulder is feeling better the last few days, but it has really slowed me down. I have to mention here that I am not being a wimp. I have been in constant pain for over 10 years now, since a very bad 3-wheeling accident which left me with a lot of damage to my leg, back and hip. And a few years ago, I seriously injured my rotator cuff. Add to that the fact that I was diagnosed with arthritis at age 17 and you've got one hurting unit, lol. So, I've taken it easy in order to not injure my shoulder any worse than it already is. And the rest has helped.

I've noticed that my body has a hard time with high impact aerobics - the jumping (landing), etc. I have a steel rod from knee to ankle in my left leg and other bone damage to that ankle and foot. So, I have to be careful not to hurt myself. So.....

I think I may spend more time doing calisthenics and throw in the cardio as a bonus instead of the other way around. I went and picked up a stability ball and will begin using that this week.

I have met my calorie requirements all week. That is actually the part that I have the least problem with. Most days I have a hard time even getting close to 1200 calories. I did have some trouble going over my sodium recommendations a few days this week and thanks to that and TOM and the rain coming soon I am having a bit of a water retention issue. I do drink TONS of water, though, so hopefully soon that will all even out soon.

I'm using my new measuring cups and spoons every meal. Once I got over the shock of how small a serving size was I did fine. The key for me is to totally S L O W down when I eat and concentrate on what I'm doing. Usually, by the time my food is gone I am full. Remember, it takes at least 15 minutes for you to feel full once you already are full. So, slowing down will help you to feel that feeling before you over-stuff yourself.

OK, so now... the news that you've all been waiting for! (I know, I know, I am over-enthusiastic about how into my story you are, right?)

How much weight did I lose this week? I'm trying not to be disappointed, since earlier in the week I showed a Five Pound Weight Loss. And, again, I am blaming this all on TOM and Rain. But, I'm still happy. At least the scale moved!

I lost TWO pounds this week.

So, I am down to 193 with 48 lbs more to go. Not too bad for my activity level being seriously sidelined.

To be continued...

Week One Completed

It has officially been one week since I started to make the changes in my life to become a healthier and happier person. I have logged all my food, as well as my water intake and daily movement with SparkPeople and MyFitnessPal. Though at times I had very stressful situations happen, I neither turned to or away from food as a comfort or a punishment.

I have tried to keep my calorie intake to around 1200 daily, but had some trouble on a few days. Not going over, but going under. I've also been paying closer attention to my sodium intake and am shocked at how easy it is to reach or exceed my daily goal.

I've been very surprised to see how much salt is in the foods you wouldn't normally consider salty. Unfortunately, this has limited the foods I would normally think were ok to eat. This week I will spend some time researching more healthy food choices in order to have a bigger selection.

Today is my official weigh-in day and though I have burned over 2.000 calories through exercise and eliminated 3.500 calories through calorie restriction, I am afraid that I have not lost even one pound. While I am tempted to be discouraged, I am taking into consideration that my size 12 jeans that were very tight, especially first coming out of the dryer, were actually very comfortable when I wore them yesterday.

Also, I never did take my measurements before I started this journey, so this morning I picked up a measuring tape in order to compare this week to next week just in case the scale doesn't move.

All in all, I feel pretty good about the past week. I did 30-45 minutes of exercise, 6 out of 7 days. Thursday I had to take a day off because I hurt so badly all over, especially my shoulder due to an old rotator cuff injury.

My energy level has been good, except for the fact that my sleep is in one 4-5 hour stretch at night and maybe a nap during the day, if I'm lucky. I would much rather a complete 8 hours at once. In order to do that and get up at 5 a.m., I need to go to bed at 9 p.m. instead of staying up until 1-2 a.m. every night. Not so easy.

Drinking over 8 glasses of water a day has been no problem. I started doing that back in January. I really have no desire to drink anything else, except for my coffee in the mornings.

In conclusion, my goals for this week are:

1. Take my measurements
2. Research for more healthy food choices
3. Get adequate rest
4. Cardio at least 5 out of 7 days
5. Add circuit / strength training to my workouts
6. Meet my calorie requirements
7. Get new measuring cups and spoons to more adequately measure portions (I did this this morning!)

Some small victories this week:

• I did not eat any of the freshly baked chocolate chip cookies that DD14 baked
• Even though I REALLY wanted a bacon cheeseburger, I opted for a portabella mushroom veggie burger instead.
• When The Man insisted on going to Ryan's for the Mega Breakfast Buffet, I thought hard about how hard I worked this week and then settled for only a glass of ice water, a 3 eggs scrambled and 3 links of pork sausage. ( I admit, though.. it was pretty torturous)

My reward for getting through the week without 'messing up':

Dying my hair today! Really needs it... been putting it off.