My Birthday!

So...I didn't meet my birthday goal. Wonk wonk. I totally lost my mind the past month with lots of traveling to New York and Kansas City and Arkansas and basically did nothing but eat and sit around. I honestly thought I had gained about 10 pounds, but it only turned out to be like 3 pounds...phew.

My birthday was fabulous with a delicious lunch at Breadwinners, happy hour with a lot of work friends, dinner at Goodfellas with more work friends, and then Banditos on Saturday. Mom even sent me beautiful flowers!

Of course I went to the gym this week trying to be good, and I went to a kickboxing class for the first time. I walked in and the instructor girl asked if anyone was new. It was only me and one other girl, and the advice we got was "Just keep punching." Okay...apparently everyone else had been in the class since Week 32 and they were on Week 47. Yikes. I stayed through the whole hour, but around 45 minutes something was feeling off. Since then my back has been hurting - pretty sure I pulled something, and I had to stay home from work Thursday afternoon and just lie on the floor. I did go work out this afternoon (just on the elliptical) but I'm definitely still feeling some pain after being up and about all day.

So a lot happened in September. I went to the U.S. Open in New York while on a business trip and got to see my favorite tennis players (Nadal, Roddick, and Isner) and bought a bunch of presents for all my jealous family members.

I went home to Arkansas for a weekend, hung out with Rivka at her awesome new place and ate lots of delicious indian food, and watched football with the family.

I went to Kansas City for work, conducted a training class, and made some new friends at our teambuilding venue. (Also ate delicious apple cider and apple cider donuts...I may have ordered both a cider slush AND a hot cider. No guilt. And I traipsed around a corn maze for 45 minutes, so they were also well deserved.)

The cutest earless goat you will ever see. 

As far as goals...I'm pushing my ultimate goal out to December 31st. I haven't really lost anything since June, and I haven't tracked my calories or been to the gym (besides the kickboxing incident this week) so I'm rebooting. My only travel plans for October are the 11th-13th for our teambuilding event, and then at the end of the month I will be going to New Orleans for Halloween, woo!! I can't wait!

I revamped my goals/rewards sheet in case anyone is interested in reading the updated breakdown. November is going to be a lot of traveling (going to visit Meaghan, Alicia, and Johnny) so I'm pretty much hoping to break even over that month, and then go hardcore through December.

Hopefully more consistent updates now that I'm back in Dallas for a while!

Workout Playlist for April 2011

While I'm sitting here watching Save the Last Dance (don't act like you don't love it) and waiting on my laundry to finish drying, I decided to revamp my workout playlist. I use my cheap little Sansa MP3 player to workout since it's tiny and if I drop it, it's no big deal because (a) it's flash-based so the chances of it breaking are minimal and (b) if it does break, it cost about $20.

I am not a person that can workout without my music. Seriously, if I forget my MP3 player I just turn around and go home, because there's no point. I won't push myself as hard, and I get so bored that it's miserable, and I don't want working out to be a miserable experience. Usually music solves this problem, but I've been listening to the same playlist for the last month and I'm starting to get bored with the same 10-12 songs I listen to every workout. I need to mix it up, so I've taken to the internet to find some new workout tunes.

I've settled on the following songs for my April playlists. Enjoy, and feel free to give me any suggestions!

1. Ridin' Solo - Jason Derulo
2. Better Than Revenge - Taylor Swift
3. Born This Way - Lady Gaga
4. Cowboy Casanova - Carrie Underwood
5. Dancing on My Own - Robyn
6. Evacuate the Dancefloor - Cascada
7. Right Round - Flo Rida
8. Sexy Bitch - David Guetta
9. Beautiful - Akon
10. Miss You Being Gone - The Band Perry
11. Somewhere with You - Kenny Chesney
12. King of Anything - Sara Bareilles

Mid-Month Update: Even More Workouts

I haven't been updating as often with my recipe posts because I haven't been cooking that much (which is bad). Because I'm going to the gym a lot after work with Cathy, we either get something to eat on the way back or have something at her place. She did make delicious pork and vegetable wrap one night that was delicious and low calorie. Since my last post, I went to a lot of workout classes and had my first personal training session.

FYI: You don't look like this while spinning.

I went to spinning on Monday, which was the class I was most terrified of taking, but I ended up LOVING it. I even got a thumbs up from the instructor about forty-five minutes into the class. It was as if something just clicked and I got in the zone and just pushed myself. It was awesome, and I really want to make that a weekly class. On Tuesday we took zumba, which was just ok. It was fun, but I feel like I didn't get as good of a workout as I would have on my own.

The personal training session was on Wednesday. The trainer was very nice, and the exercises we did were good, but I just wanted a more kick-my-ass type training session, and this wasn't it. She did show me how to use a few of the weight machines to target the places I most want to work on toning, but other than that, it wasn't anything special. I have two more sessions left in my package, but I'm not sure if I'm going to buy more or not at this point.

Thursday was an off day, but I did walk a couple of miles downtown for the Blackhawks game on St. Patrick's Day! So much fun. I also ate delicious Mexican food at Chuy's and went WAY over my calorie range. Friday and Saturday were just plain ol' elliptical days with some abs and weight machines thrown in for good measure.

So I'm pretty proud of myself for actually making it to the gym five days this week, but the problem is that I need to reign in my calorie counting. I haven't lost any weight this month (although to be fair I did gain a few pounds while in Rhode Island, and I did lose that) and there's only eleven days left. I definitely think I'm gaining muscle from working out, and I've gotten way more comments about my weight loss from people at work this past week. Even so, I am really going to have to buckle down to meet my goal this month.

Back from Vacation!

I haven't posted in a while because I have been on vacation! I went to visit Alicia in Providence, RI for almost a week and had such a good time. It was definitely a last-minute trip planned about two weeks in advance, which is something that I never do since travel is the one thing I do get crazy anal retentive tendencies about, but I'm so glad I did. Full disclosure: I didn't stick to my calorie limits (and didn't intend to do so - not what a vacation is for), but I did log all my calories every day. Still up a few pounds from where I was before vacation, but I'll get it back down.

Did I mention the Lady Gaga concert in Boston? And how she had a giant fish puppet that she called the Fame Monster? And how we had floor seats about ten feet away from the stage? Best. Show. Ever.

Now that I'm back, my co-worker/friend Cathy and I have decided to combine forces in a Memorial Day Challenge. Our goal is to lose six pounds a month (minimum) until Memorial Day, but the focus is on going to the gym five days a week and doing something active the other two days (going for a walk, dancing, whatever). This ties in with my Lenten promise - working out at least five days a week at the gym until Easter. I've decided to join 24 Hour Fitness so Cathy and I can easily work out together, and all the group classes are free!

I'm focusing mainly on cardio, so I have been working on the elliptical for 40 minutes doing intervals. I try to get an elliptical with the arm movement - it's funny how much of a difference that makes! That puts me at about 450 calories burned according to the elliptical machine. We're also alternating strength training for abs, arms/back, and legs/glutes. This is where Cathy comes in handy - the first day we were doing abs, she had us do 30 reps of front, left, and right crunches (that's 90 total) and then looked at me and said, "Okay, now let's do two more sets!" I almost murdered her, but I would never push myself that hard on my own. Same thing with actually getting to the gym; it's so much easier to talk yourself into going when you make plans with someone. 

We even went to a class this morning called Kickboxing Boot Camp. The instructor was probably about 7 or 8 months pregnant and bouncing around the gym like she didn't have an almost fully-grown child in her uterus. I kept that in mind when I felt like I was going to die during the workout. I really liked the class though and I'm definitely going to try out the other classes available to keep me from getting bored. I'm still a little intimidated going into the gym, but everyone seems so friendly that it makes me less nervous every time I go. 

One other change since I posted last time - since I burn at least 400 calories per gym session, and I've found that my 1200-1500 calories a day wasn't cutting it while I'm burning all these calories at the gym. I haven't been grazing for food like that all year, and I was going nuts trying to find something that would keep me full after dinner. So in order to avoid a mental breakdown, I've decided on gym days, I can eat up to 1800 calories if I feel like I need it; with the exercise factored in, that still puts me at 1400 total for the day. We'll see how that goes over the next couple of weeks and I'll adjust it if I'm not seeing the results on the scale. 

To leave on a happy note, I celebrated St. Patrick's Day at the Greenville Ave. parade yesterday, and it was so much fun!! Lots of green, ridiculous costumes, and pretty much the only day of the year when morning drinking in the streets is socially acceptable - what's not to love?

I wish I could wear this headband every single day.

Gym Workout Today

Went to the gym (at my apartment complex) for the first time in...I can't remember when. Maybe last summer? Maybe.

I burned 350 calories on the elliptical in a little over 30 minutes. I was worried going in that I wouldn't be able to finish the full 30 minutes, but I surprised myself!

Definitely going more often now. Bonus: there were only two other people at any given point, so that was great. I expected it to be WAY more crowded around 7 o'clock.

I got my charm in the mail today, so I added it to my bracelet. Hopefully I can make this month's goal! I'm afraid it's going to be close, but so far a total of 12 pounds down since January 1!

Workout: Crunch Cardio Dance Blast

I'll do my month update tomorrow night, but suffice to say I have not done well this week. Working out, eating well, all of it seems to have flown out the window. I think it had something to do with the training we were forced to endure at work Wednesday through Friday this week. Whatever the reason, even though I already met my January goal a week ago, I may not meet it when I weigh in tomorrow. 

When I'm dancing I want to look like this....

As a last ditch effort to try and make the weigh in tomorrow morning, I'm drinking as much water as possible today, eating under 1200 calories, and decided to do a different workout from the Wii Fit. The Wii Fit has been fantastic for motivation and getting used to exercising regularly (and for strength training, which I almost never do if I go to the gym), but I hardly ever feel like I'm breaking a sweat while using it. I felt like dancing!

But I always end up feeling like this.

I turned to Netflix instant streaming, which I absolutely LOVE by the way, to see if there was a fun workout video to do that would really get me going. I've tried the Bollywood dance videos and even the Carmen Electra striptease workout (my all time favorite solely based on the hilarity), but nothing really sticks since I always felt silly flailing around my living room trying to follow the instructor. I love to dance with my iPod on, but with the choreographed moves and looking at the girls on the video, I always end up feeling like an idiot. On the other hand, sometimes the instructor moves too slow or the dancing is too basic and I end up bored. I can only do so many grapevines, people. 

Netflix had a large selection of workout videos to stream instantly and I picked the Crunch: Cardio Dance Blast. It's a little under 40 minutes long and it looked like the most fun out of all the videos, so I figured I'd give it a shot. So glad I did! This workout had me sweating, kept me entertained and, bonus, it didn't make me feel like an uncoordinated freak. Finally, the instructor is actually kind of fun and encouraging instead of the usual annoying screeching stick figure, saying things like "Uh oh, who's bad, I dunno, it's us!" and "Look out J-Lo, we comin' up." Who wouldn't love that?

Here is the first ten minutes of the workout; if you have Netflix instant streaming, I highly recommend putting this in your queue and trying it out. 

Boot Camp: 28 Day Challenge: Day 1

In addition to using my Wii Fit everyday (for different reasons, not the least of which it yells at me if I skip a day) I'm going to follow Sparkpeople.com's bootcamp workout for the next four weeks. For those who don't know, Sparkpeople is a wonderful free site where you can track calories, goals, recipes, workouts, and basically anything you would ever need to lose weight. Again, for free.

They had this workout as one of the challenges for January on the Start page, so I signed up for it. They lured me in with words like "for people of all fitness levels" and "it's called 'Bootcamp' not because it's highly intense, but because it involves daily exercise and commitment" and "10 minutes or less." I set up a Youtube playlist with all the videos and set my TV up to play the first one yesterday evening. 

I scoffed at the 11 minute length of the cardio workout - 11 minutes is nothing! How is that a cardio workout? Can you even get your heart rate up enough? Meanwhile, the instructor on the video has been power marching and I can already feel myself thinking "Ok, is this over yet?" I couldn't even DO the jumping lunges at about 6:00 and the mountain climbers and squat thrusts that followed nearly killed me. 

After the 11:00 workout finished I was sold on this bootcamp, not because it made me feel like I'd actually done some serious physical activity (which it did) but because it got me to do exercises I didn't believe I could do. I was watching MTV's I Used to Be Fat last week, and there was a girl on the show who started at 253 pounds and her trainer was making her do these mountain climber moves. When I was watching her I thought, there is no way in hell I could do those. Yesterday I proved myself wrong. :)

So it turns out Wii Fit is kind of a bitch.

I got a Wii and Wii Fit for Christmas. No, this was not a veiled attempt by my family to hint I might want to get up off the couch, I actually did ask Santa for one. (Apparently Santa reads my Amazon.com Wish List. Noted.) I wanted a new game system since my old PS2 is on its way out; I can only play three or four songs on Rock Band before the picture on the screen gets too fuzzy for me to follow the drum beats. I've played with the Wii at a few friends' houses and it was fun, and I figured it's also relatively cheap and it streams Netflix!

My parents and brother played the Sports Resort after Christmas dinner, but I didn't open the Wii Fit balance board until this morning when I knew no one was in the house. I knew from online reviews that the "game" keeps track of progress, including any weight loss, and I was not going to have my family listening to exactly how overweight I am being broadcast across our surround-sound speakers. After fiddling with syncing the board with the console, I clicked through the introductions and selected my cute little Wii Mi (an avatar I made to resemble me) in her pink shirt and kicky ponytail.

The screen version of the balance board told me to climb on and it would calculate my BMI. Here we go. I stepped onto the balance board and it exclaims "OH!" And not in a "OH! Yay! You've stepped on me and now I'm quietly calculating your BMI based on weight and height!" but more in a "OH! Holy shit, warn a balance board before you haul your fat ass on top of me, alright?!" Once it finishes the measurements, it tells me that I am obese (not a huge shock), but then makes my Wii Mi FATTER! She ballooned out in the front and the back. Now, instead of a spunky little chick with a ponytail, there's a chunky round girl with a double chin. Harsh, reality. 

The rest of the test went ok, and it put my "Fit Age" at 24, a year younger than my actual age. Which makes me feel good, but also makes me suspect that the "Fit Age" has no basis in reality. I snuck in a few of the aerobic activities before my dad came back in the house and I quickly turned it off to avoid the inevitable raucous laughter that would come at my expense if he caught a glimpse of me doing the hula hoop mini-game (I totally kill it though - 307 is my high score so far). I suspect once I get back to my apartment I will have a love-hate relationship with the Wii Fit, but if I get on it just to prove it wrong, that's good enough for me.