it's like i'm the slow kid in class

i did end up going to the ab blast/cardio mix class yesterday...and no, we didn't go outside.  we DID do a ton of hard drills/exercises, though....and everyone else there didn't seem to have too much trouble with it. probably because they do it regularly. so yes, i'm the slow kid in class. one of these days, the instructor will stop saying to me "it's ok, just go at your own pace." or "it's a hard class, do what you can". hahaha!

but then i remember that they won the madison's biggest loser, and i know they've worked with people more out-of-shape than me and have whipped them up into being more fit!  it's just that the people in my classes seem like they're REALLY in shape!  it's ok, though. i'll suck it up!

i'm sore in places i've never really been sore before. hahaha...i guess that happens when you take a class that feels like it's almost a bootcamp!  i'm getting used to being sore, i just hope that my body will soon get used to it. (and, my back is fine this week, which is great!)

yesterday, i was proud of myself for eating all healthy foods throughout the day. i think i'm going to get flaxseed (which is supposed to help reduce cellulite) and fiber powder to put onto my food. might give me a boost that i need!

...a little less sore...

kettlebell/trx class was still difficult yesterday, but i made sure to use lighter weights and i paid more attention to my posture. it's really easy to bend over too far when using kettlebell weights! 

but, yeah...my back isn't as sore as it was last week! woot! my legs are killing me, though...probably because the instructor is a huge fan of lunges and squats. merp.

i think i'm finally getting the hang of trx, too...i'm better at figuring out what angles to go at (the more upright you are, the easier it is, so that's what i did), and balancing when my feet are in the straps.  i also think that the activities we did on them weren't as intense, which means that the instructor probably evaluated our skill level more since last week.

there's another lunchtime class tomorrow called ab blast/cardio mix, which i might try. it's a little intimidating, because i've seen them go outside and run (and i'm not so much a runner) and do drills, but i might as well try it once, right?  hopefully my coworkers won't be watching too much (they can see the outdoor classes from the window.)!

that's all i have for now. happy st. patty's day! (note the green font?)

am i doomed?

i am going to be taking the kettlebell class again today - using lighter weights!  it took me until saturday last week to feel fully recovered from the tuesday class. :-/

i told rebecca that if i hurt myself again, i'm probably not going to do that class anymore.  at least i got some moves i can add to my regular workout routine.  oh, and they're changing the class schedule on april 4th....we're going to have power kickboxing (which includes weights), and spinning at night. not gonna lie, i'm kind of intimidated by spinning, but i might as well try it once and see what happens!

and here's an article from womenshealth.gov about carbs.  they send me emails every once in a while about diet and exercise. it's kind of nice!

oh my gosh....

yesterday, i left work early to go judge a forensics (speech team) meet.  rebecca and i decided to try out the "intro to kettlebell and trx" class.

i don't think there was anything "intro" about it! there were many women there, and the trainer, cory, was doing it for the first time.  now, cory is this really muscular guy who looks like he never stops lifting weights.  he's pretty hardcore.

anyway, rebecca and i struggled, especially with some of the trx exercises (they are ropes that hang down with handles on them and you use your body weight with them)....we had to pull ourselves up from the floor using only our arms in the ropes. doesn't sound (or look) that hard, but once we were doing them, i was grunting!

both of us are really sore today, which is making me question if i should go to kickboxing tonight, because the trainer for that is also hardcore, and is apparently doing new (and harder) choreography tonight.  i was having issues just bending over to pick something up from the floor this morning!

which brings me to my next concern....after every class i take at the gym, my lower back hurts. rebecca doesn't always feel the same way. do you think this is normal? (i know that lisa has had some back issues before, too!)

Hi, I'm Lisa...

...and I'm addicted to food!!

Here's the deal: I like food way too much. Some call it emotional eating, others call it lack of willpower. I call it an addiction. Now, I know I shouldn't be throwing words like "addiction" around, and I've watched plenty of the Discovery channel's shows on food addiction. However, I think it best suits me.

Working out is coming easier and easier, especially since I now have buddies that I feel comfortable socializing with while working out. It feels like "me" time again.

So, how do I cut ties with the junk food? I have been eating healthier during the day, but at night with the bf, it's any one's guess what will enter my mouth. (last night it was Taco Bell!)

I'd love to hear how you guys are able to overcome urges to eat junk food. Keep in mind, I have to be in the right mood to cook, which is not often. I usually take dishes duty.

Another week

So, last week (starting Tuesday) I started my diet. For the first few days, I wrote down all the food I ate and the calories, fat and cholesterol in each. After a few days, I really got the hang of what I could eat, and was eating similar food all week.

Friday night started the derailment. Brian and I went out for fish fry, which was ok since I got the baked fish. Not so ok, that there was melted butter to dip the fish in (believe me, it needed it). I ordered vegetables instead of potato, however they were sauteed in butter. And I had a roll with butter. But otherwise ok. In the future, I think we'll stick to our local diner that has a cheaper all-you-can-eat fish fry, with healthier sides.

Saturday, I was doing ok, until family dinner, which I like a little too much. I was hungry, and as Karen can attest, Fern's casserole is a little hard to pass up on!

Sunday, I grazed. I bought a new washing machine, so I was at home most of the day catching up on laundry.

Towards the end of last week, I was feeling thinner, and more full of energy. Yesterday and today, I feel like I have a food hangover. Any suggestions on how to remedy it, other than just starting my diet again (that's the plan)?

woah.

the biggest loser challenge at work is coming to a close. i did not partake because everyone who did it had to put in $100 and there wasn't any chance of me winning because some of the guys had a LOT to lose. they started it january 1st, and now they're finishing up.

so far, the winner is ron, who lost 41lbs. that's crazy! he joined the same gym i go to, and he worked out every single day for 2 hrs a day...so i know he worked hard for it. i asked him if he'll keep at it as much after the competition and he said yes. maybe HE should be my workout buddy! :P

bruce is the other top contender....he doesn't weigh in until thursday, though, because he started that many days after everyone else. i know he was way over 300lbs to begin with, and i can tell he's lost weight, so it might be a close call.

yeah, as i told olivia, if i lost 41 lbs, i'd be an unhealthy waif! ;)

gettin' back to it!

late last week, i caught a nasty cold. i'm still having coughing attacks and am congested, but i'm a LOT better than i was earlier this week! 

anyway, needless to say, i hadn't really worked out for a while. yesterday, i finally got back in the saddle and went to the gym. and let me tell you, it felt so good!  who would've known i would actually enjoy working out?!

i plan on going again today, and hopefully i won't cough or need to blow my nose as much as yesterday. yech.

still around the same weight, but i feel slightly more toned than before, so that's good! i've been reading my health magazine for some additional exercises, and a couple of them i already was doing in my routine. sweet!

this week wasn't so great for food, though....mainly because it was safety training week for work...which means that i had to help prepare some not-so-healthy food for over 100 construction workers.  there weren't any other places to pick up food, and it was free, so i ate it. i didn't overload my plate, though, so hopefully that's good? and i opted for fruit instead of donuts for the breakfast. :) oh, and a blueberry muffin. hehe!

i'm glad that subway has their $5 footlong promotion again, because sometimes i like to stop there for lunch and buy a footlong, eating only half and then saving the other half for later. that's what i did today....so i'm going to have a sweet onion chicken teriaki sub for dinner. :D

i still think i need to scale back a little on some of my meals, and i considered doing another vegetarian kick, but that was impossible this week. (they served steak, pulled pork, burgers and brats at the safety training...). maybe next week i'll consider it.  i liked doing it because it pushed me out of my comfort zone when ordering food and i ended up cooking more, and making things i don't normally make (like boca burgers, tofu burritos, etc). i'll think about it!

i can't wait until spring, so i can go walking outside again! it feels so good to do that, and definitely boosts my mood!

Bad Week

Last week I had a pretty bad week, I went to my workout class on Monday, but after that I was super busy, and feeling down and did not go the rest of the week or do anything except class and work/study. I also ate a lot of junk food. This week I'm back on track, went to class yesterday and today and got my butt kicked. I really do need to start running again though since I will be running a 5K when I'm in Madison on the 14th and I want to be able to kick Pete's butt, and keep up with the friends I'm running with. It snowed again this weekend, which means I won't be out on the streets like I want to be, but hopefully I can force myself to go on the treadmill just to keep going. I also need to do better at eating healthy, and really cooking my veggies from my farm share. I've been avoiding them.

I think a lot of it (when you have the tools, means and everything) is just to DO it. It's so easy for us to come up with excuses, and not workout or eat healthy for whatever reason, but it's so important that we just DO it. I know I feel SO much better when I'm working out and eating well, and I get super depressed when I eat junk food and sit around, so I just need to kick my own butt and make myself make forward progress.

Lisa, it's amazing how quickly you can improve cholesterol. Before I started working out I had really low HDL (38?) and like 200 cholesterol. After only 6 months of working out I had raised my HDL to 58 and lowered my cholesterol to like 170. As for your goal of weight loss, for me I have a hard time meeting goals like that. So I just make my goal better fitness and general health, although it is not as "achievable" I know that I am more driven to get healthy, than I am to stress about every pound on the scale. Maybe setting some small fitness and diet goals?

I miss TurboKick, maybe I should find a kickboxing class to help replace it, and I would love to start doing Yoga/Pilates again, but my schedule is just too nuts and full of studying...

I'm hoping to start getting out and hiking on the weekends, since we never ended up getting out this winter like we planned.

Hope you guys are doing well!

heia

I came across this website on facebook. www.heiaheia.com it's a place where you can set your own weekly exercise goals, mark what you've done. Network with friends.

Go check it out.

I thought it might be a fun way to keep each other motivated, from a distance.

I just signed up like 5 mins ago, so I don't know much about it, but it seemed promising and quite ideal for this group

The time is now!

I've been pretty quiet on here, mostly because I haven't been taking care of myself how I used to. The main reason is motivation. I have all the "tools" to be healthy, I just am not motivated to use them. What tools am I talking about? I know how to lose weight through diet, I have so in my recent past. I also know how to exercise, and have the proper "tools" to do it. I own a Wii Fit, Elliptical, Stair Stepper, Exercise ball, and yoga equipment/videos. I also belong to Curves. So, lack of tools or know how is not an excuse.

Then, what are my excuses, if it isn't lack of tools, know how or money? Well, it's changes in my life. Having a live-in boyfriend who eats junk food I like. Having the feeling of sharing a meal with him, and enjoying the same foods-junk food. Having a puppy and recently a sick cat that needs my attention. I need to be home after work to attend to the animals instead of going to work out. (gosh, what is it going to be like when I have kids?) And, lastly an excuse is injury. Burning my arm a year and a half ago was the beginning of the weight gain. The shock of an injury. (I'm pretty healthy, until you see below) These excuses, are mind games I play with myself. They are just making me feel better for not working out and taking care of my self.

So, I needed motivation, and I think I've gotten it: higher than desirable LDL cholesterol. While my ratio of HDL (good) to LDL (bad) cholesterol is ok, it could be better. I also was checked for diabetes, which at this time I don't have. While size and image is one thing, health is quite another. Since I'm approaching (gasp) 30 years old, I'm thinking THE TIME IS NOW!

My doctor says I should get my cholesterol re-checked when I've lost at least 15lbs. So, there's my goal: 15lbs in ??? time. I was thinking 6 months, but that seems like long time to procrastinate. Any ideas of a timeline?

Thanks for reading! :)

pilates is pretty much amazing!

not gonna lie...i was pretty nervous about doing pilates. and not just because i was (and still am) sore.  but, i LOVED it!  we were on these pilates reformer machines that moved kind of like rowing machines, but there were a lot more things you could do with it!  we used the foot bar, foot strap, and then there were two straps from the other side of the machine that you can use either your hands or feet in.  i felt like my whole body got a workout, and i wasn't even sweaty afterwards! i really felt refreshed!

the only downside is that we can't go in and use the machines whenever we want, because they're too much of a liability. which means, if we want to do it again, we'd have to pay for personal training sessions, which are pretty pricey.  rebecca and i want to do duet personal training with robin (the woman i've been working with) - combining both strength training with weights and pilates, but we don't have the spare money right now.  so we might wait it out and see if we want to do it if/when we start working overtime in the late spring.

in the meantime, the classes and everything are good at kicking my butt. hopefully i'll start to see the results in my body soon!

and...kickboxing!

last night was my first time taking kickboxing class. i was slightly intimidated, because they were on the last week of the choreography, which meant that everyone else there had been doing it for a while (and she adds on new things to each class, so this was the most challenging session).  i thought i did pretty well, if i do say so myself! i was able to keep up decently, and although i probably was more out of breath than my counterparts, i think i pulled my weight, so to speak.

yes, i am sore today, but i think that my body is getting more and more used to the harder workouts.  my main soreness is in my lower back, and i think it's because that are is harder for me to stretch (i made sure to stretch a ton after the workout).

tonight, we're doing a duet pilates training with the woman i've been working with in personal training.  i'm a little scared because we're using pilates machines (i've never used them), and i am sore, but i know that this will help me a lot. i'm feeling more and more fit, and i'm sure soon my size and weight will show it!

what kinds of workouts are you ladies doing?

personal training session!

wow, am i sore!  i had my first session with a personal trainer yesterday....it was really good, but also really tiring!  she had me doing a ton of new things that i hadn't done before, and i can definitely feel it now!

rebecca and i are thinking about having sessions with her like once every other month.  it's pricey, but they split the cost if there are two of us doing it. i think it would be a good way to keep on track and to learn new and different exercises.

so, yeah, i think that i'm moving in the right direction, and hopefully soon, i'll look and feel more toned!

update

I've been out of the picture for a long time, sorry.
In December, the week before christmas I tried a low carb diet. It was great. I lost like 5-6 pounds in a week, but then came christmas.. I'm sure you know what that means.
But I've been good for a few weeks now. Not doing the very low calorie diet anymore, can't believe all those eggs and bacon and such are good for me in a long run. But I'm still staying away from potatoes, rice and pasta. I don't really even like potatoes so it's not that hard. Just lots of salads and low fat foods, full bran rye bread and fat free yoghurt and lots of fruit. I feel lighter though I don't think I look so nor does the scale say so but..
The best part is I haven't had any desire for candy or other such treats. Staying out of all that sugar should be good.
My biggest problem is my impatience. It's just too hard to wait to see any results.. Oh and exercise. To my defense I've been wanting to go out for a run but it's been -20°C(-4F) for quite a long time and now that it's warmer it's snowing like mad. I can't wait to see clear roads again.
I'm not really a big fan of winter.
This is starting get too messy, I better stop.

Progress...

What a busy semester, however, I'm still managing to keep somewhat on track. I go to my PES class (BodySculpt and Abs & More) 4 times a week, and whenever I have the energy I'm trying to run on the treadmill before class. I just can't wait until it's lighter out later, so I can run in the evening after class. Or when it's not super cold in the morning, so I can run outside before class. This weekend I am running a 5K in Sedona, I'm not super prepared, still haven't been able to run one straight without a couple walking breaks, but I am going down in elevation a couple thousand feet, and I'm hoping the adrenaline will carry me the rest of the way. If I have to walk, I have to walk.

We didn't get out permits to do a Rim to Rim in May, but we might try to do a shorter in and back trip, and hopefully we can get into a better system to start training hikes on the weekends.

Sounds like you guys are doing great. Keep it up! Small steps :)

zumba!

yesterday, i had my first zumba class at the new gym.  it was fun, but intense! the instructor didn't show us how to do any of the moves, just said "follow me....do what i do".  i'm glad i have a little bit of a dance background, because i don't know if i would've been able to keep up!


anyway, i'm pretty sore. my first personal training session is tomorrow, and if it's anything like my coworkers' ones, it's gonna kick my butt! (in a good way, i hope.) 


i'm really liking the gym so far.  i feel like i have so many more options than before. yay!


how are your workout routines going?

interesting information

i heard on the radio this morning that the mayo clinic (which always reminds me of mayonnaise when i hear it!) recently did a study of body fat in "skinny" people....and found that even if you don't weight a lot, you can still have a high body fat percentage.  this reminded me of a conversation that i had with josie a few years back about "skinny fat" girls. they look like twigs, but they have fat, not muscle. crazy!

i went on the mayo clinic's website to see if i found the article, but i got distracted with a different one, which is about nutrition facts and how to read food labels....pretty cool (and it's interactive!). 

in other news, i'm joining the new gym today! woohoo!  i am going to try to get a personal training session tomorrow, since i'm taking the day off from my (first) job. maybe that will help me get adjusted to it. i'm kind of scared, though...i've never worked with a personal trainer before, and i'm not sure if i can do everything they'll ask me to!

i'm probably going to do the zumba class on sunday (provided that my second job doesn't schedule me), and there's kickboxing classes on monday and wednesday evenings, which might conflict with work, so i will have to play it by ear each week.

i'm really happy that the gym is across the street from work, because i usually have the issue of going home after work, and feeling too lazy to work out (this happened yesterday, in fact!)...now, i'll go straight to the gym so i can't make that excuse! :D

wiiiiiiii!

so. i have my wii fit. and i'm having a blast with it!!!

i've been weighing myself every day on it, and apparently i'm losing weight, but i don't know if i believe that, since the normal scale says i'm about the same as i've been for a while. oh well.

next week, i'm signing up for the new gym. i told my current gym i'm quitting, and since it's month-to-month, the 31st will be my last day there, and i won't be charged again. sa-weet! they personally emailed me to see why i'm quitting. when i said that i feel like i'm not having enough direction or variety in my workouts, they offered me 2 free personal training sessions. i guess i could've taken them up on it, but i would feel bad because i know i'm not staying. plus, their gym is tiny, so i'd have to do my session around everyone else.

i talked to hybrid, and they said if i sign up in the last week of january, i'll still get the lower price (i guess it's a month long promotion), and they won't charge me til february 15th. nice!

i've been doing ok eating. i had a few "bad food" days this month, where i ate junk food, but for the most part, i've been decent....eating smaller meals, but more frequently. and, i've felt lost without fresh fruits and veggies, so that's a good sign! ;)

how is january shaping up for you?

New Year!

Hi Guys!
For the new year, I have no official resolutions. However, I'm hoping to get in better shape to do more hiking. I'll be running my official first 5K in Sedona in February. I tried to run a 4mile run on New Years, but had to walk for some of it. We're also aiming to hike rim to rim in the Grand Canyon in May, so in order to do that, I'll have to do lots of hiking. I'm hoping to go for a hike each weekend to build up. I'm taking to PE classes at school, both are more strength training, so I will do those, and then keep running too.

Also, now that I'm back from the holidays. I'm going back to eating healthy. Which means no soda, and try to eat only natural foods.

Good luck girls!