Day 83: Week 12 Results, Month 3

Three months!  I’ve been doing this for three months!  I can’t believe it.  That just seems like an incredibly long time to have been on a calorie restriction…life change.  When I started writing this blog and counting calories, I knew that it would take a long time to reach my goal.  Especially if I wanted to do it in a healthy way and keep the weight off.  I just seems like it has just blown by though!  Thank goodness.

This week I have been struggling with my best friend and partner [Matt] being out of town, recovering from a sinus infection [nicknamed the Nast], and coping with the weird meds my doc put me on [crazy steroids]. 

·         Usually when Matt is out of town, I get lonely and want to make myself feel better by having some of my bad foods.  Pizza, chocolate, wine, and other goodies were my go-to splurges.  I fought that off this week.  Woohoo!

·         When I’m sick I don’t want to work out.  I just want to lay around and mope in my sickliness…stupid Nast.  With the help of the meds, I actually worked out a lot!

·         The meds for the Nast included a steroid that made me stay awake until at least midnight, and have tons of energy.  I didn’t get much sleep, but I didn’t feel like I needed.  The real challenge will be Sunday, when I don’t take any at all!  I feel a crash coming on.

 

Here’s what the measurements say:

·         Lost 1.2 pounds since Monday, Lost total of 21.8 pounds so far!

·         Lost 2 inches in the last 3 weeks, Lost total of 23.75 inches so far!

Good Weigh-in!

I still have 5 pounds to go to reach pre-pregnancy weight!  Then I will have another 19 pounds to go to reach my total goal of 40 pounds.  I am just glad to be within sight of my pre-preggers weight!  I will be a very happy girl when I get there…hopefully in about 3 weeks!  Hey, that will be right around my birthday…What a great present!

Here’s hoping I can stay on this winning streak!

Day 82: How Super Woman Feels?

Is this how Super Woman feels?

In no way am I saying that I am a super woman, or that I run around in a cool outfit with other hunky superheroes.  I am feeling super energetic and kinda crazed though.  Since Monday I have been taking Prednisone, a steroid that my doc prescribed for the nasty bacterial sinus infection that I’ve had for a week and a half.  He said that I will feel great, and that I will have a lot of energy.  Well, he wasn’t joking!  Since I started taking it, I have been doing basically two workouts a day!  Tuesday it was Pilates in the am, and then Zumba class in the pm.  Yesterday I ran in the afternoon and did Zumba [so fun!] at home later that evening.  What is going on???!!!  I am usually falling asleep on the couch watching TV with the hubs at 9:30!  Not this week.  It’s been a week of not sleeping much and going a little crazy with my workouts.  [BTW prednisone can cause insomnia too…yuck]

Apparently this is pretty normal for people taking prednisone or other steroids [not the creepy other steroids that meat-heads use].  Weird, right?!  AND it is supposed to make you GAIN weight!  I read one thing that said you would gain because you are more hungry [that’s an understatement].  I want to eat everything in sight, but I’m trying to stick to my calorie limits.  Another article said it was because prednisone increases cortisol, a stress hormone that can make you add or retain fat rather than melt it away.  Yikes!  I actually just lost my 2 beer fest pounds when I weighed in on Tuesday, but I’m afraid they are going to come right back with this. I guess we will see tomorrow…

So here is the game plan.  Drink more water to suppress the hunger and bloating [another lovely side affect].  Eat within my calorie restraints.  Exercise as much as I want, as long as it’s something each day.  Maybe that will keep me to my goal to actually lose weight this week!  I hope so!

This is such a weird post…sorry for the disjointed thoughts! 

I’m sure when I stop taking them I’ll crash, and that may be a better post…or not.

Day 79: Roided Up

No, you won’t see me in the gym pumping the big stuff on the free weights side with all the grunting men [ew, gross].  You won’t see me getting huge biceps or ripping my jeans with my thigh muscles.  The only things getting exercised today are the tissues for blowing my nose.  You guessed right, the steroids are for my nasty sinus infection that I was trying to fight off all last week.  Nope.  Didn’t work.  I got to make a special trip to the doc this morning because since Friday, I have had no voice.  It’s gone.  All that is left is a squeaky whisper.  Not cool.

So I left the doctor’s office with a steroid shot in my arm [ouch, more painful than the flu shot], and nose spray in my purse.  Now I have to go get my oral steroid pills, cough syrup, and allergy decongestant.  Whoa!  I don’t remember the last time I had to take sooo many medications at once!  That’s what you get when you push yourself too much. 

I worked out Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday last week while I couldn’t breathe right, and had a sore throat.  I probably should have only done some light walking.  Bad Leah.  It is so easy to push yourself when you shouldn’t sometimes.  [I kept having dreams at night about people being mad at me for not working out…ha!] Sometimes your body just needs a little rest.  In my case, my body tried to start shutting itself down to let me know…yikes.  Good thing I have an awesome hubby that kept telling me to go to the doctor!  Matt, you are the best!

I think I have figured out what was intended [maybe by God] for last week and these couple of days while I’m mending:  Stay within your calorie constraints!  It’s a little test to see if I can live without those extra calories I get from exercising.  If I can do that this week, I should still lose weight.

The challenge is on!

I’m all roided up and ready to … not eat too much J

 

Day 76: Lost and Found

Normally when you lose something, you look all over for it.  You search high and low.  You get stressed out about it.  You freak out looking for it.  THEN, when you find it, you are totally ecstatic and elated that you found it!  Not the case when losing pounds of fat.  Last week I lost 2 pounds.   Well, guess who found them.  Yep, that would be me.  This morning.  When I looked the scale.  I am sooo mad, angry, no, disappointed. 

I should have known this day would come.  That day when I would step on the scale and weigh more than the previous week.  I just hate it!  It is so disappointing to look down, and see a higher number.  I know some of why it happened.  Last weekend was Beerfest [read Beer/Foodfest].  I also only worked out 3 times this week due to my sinuses wreaking havoc on my body.  I am actually proud of myself for working out two of those days with a runny nose and pounding head.  Then we had a celebration last night for Matt’s brother.  There were yummy Brazilian hors d’ouevres involved as well as irresistible, sugary cake.  That didn’t help! 

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses!

Stop with the excuses, Leah!  Just Do It!  This is what you say in your head all the time, but now you have to comply.  I need to kick my own butt back into gear.  No more going over calories for the day.  No more not working out.  I just have to do it!

What do you do when you have a bad week?  What are some ideas to help jump back in?

Arggggg.

Day 74: I’ve Got a Bad Feeling

Two words can combine to make one word that strikes fear into the heart of every beer loving person on a diet…Beer…Fest.  Yes, Beerfest.  


Matt and me at Beerfest 2013 in Suwanee!

Every year since 2006, I have been accompanying my awesome husband and some of our friends to the Greater Gator Beerfest down in Gainesville Florida.  My hubs and his friend Damo used to go while they were in college, so this became our new tradition.  We would get into town on Friday and have a fancy steak dinner at a nice restaurant, go out in Gainesville for some drinks, and the Saturday we would get up and go to the Beerfest.  Sunday we would go to a fantastic breakfast place called Ivey’s [seriously the best cheese grits ever!]. 

Beerfests 2006, 2010, 2010, and 2011 starting in upper left...yes that is Tim Tebow!

This year the event was scheduled on Easter weekend.  Not cool.  We decided to change our plans and go to the Suwanee Beerfest this year.  It was this Saturday, and we had a great time!  Needless to say, I did not even log into MFP [www.myfitnesspal.com].  I was giving myself a day off…that actually turned into two days off.  Friday I was pretty good since I was lucky enough to catch a spin class that morning.  Then it went downhill.

Beerfest was awesome, and I ate a lot more calories than what I was used to.  I paid for it on Sunday!  I felt tired and bloated all day because I pumped myself with such bad, sodium laced stuff.  I’m slowly but surely working my way out of it. 

I’m scared of the scale on Friday!  I stepped on it today, and it had gone back up a pound!  I’m REALLY hoping it’s water weight so I get just get rid of it.  Therefore, I am just going to have to work my but off this week to get the scale back down and a little more.

So far I have upped my cardio by attending a couple of Spin classes at the gym.  Those were awesome!  Then I got to work out with my friend Kathryn [who kicked my butt!!]  This week I was able to get onto another Spin class on Monday.  Then Monday night happened.  I don’t know if it’s allergies or a stupid cold, but I could not make it yesterday morning to the gym.  Yuck!  I hate it when I don’t feel well enough for the gym.  It makes it that much harder to only eat 1200 calories.

This morning I was good enough for some elliptical at the gym.  I am feeling ok,  so that means tomorrow Kathryn will hopefully kick my butt some more!  That will bring me to Friday.  I will see the repercussions of my Beerfest actions on Friday morning around 5:45 am…

Wish me luck this week!

Day 69: Be A Groupie

There is something awesome about having one person or a couple of people to work out with.  That being said, I used to be soo nervous going to a group fitness class alone..knowing no one.  I would think, what if I don't know the steps, what if I make a fool out of myself, what if u can't keep up?  Yikes!  Talk about hyper-sensitive!!!!  [picture Mary Katherine Gallagher freaking and smelling her armpits...ok, I don't actually do that...promise].

I had the awesome opportunity to work out with my friend and neighbor Kathryn.  She is super awesome!  She totally kicked butt!  Literally.  My butt is sore!  We did legs yesterday morning, and I am scared about how my legs will feel tomorrow.  It's always the second day after the work out when you really feel it.  [I have a feeling I will be hobbling tomorrow.] Also, I actually burned MORE calories doing my leg workout with Kathryn than I did running for 30 minutes before!!  Awesome!  Thank you Kathryn!  

I took today off, so I moseyed into the gym at 9 instead of my usual 6.  Lucky me, there was a Spin class going on!  Sweet!  I never get to go to any classes!  In the 45 minutes I was in the class, my heart rate exceeded 170 about 10 times.  Whoa.  That is freakin awesome!  I burned 10 calories for each minute of that class.  Yay! 

As you can see, I push myself way harder when I have some company.  It's awesome!  I have got to try to add more of this to my workouts.  Hopefully I will be able to.

Don't have anxiety about working out with others!  They are in the same situation as you. :)

Happy Friday!!!!!

Day 67: Getting Better

On the first day of my healthy life, I had a hard time doing lots of things that I needed to do to reach my goal of losing weight and becoming healthier.  It was hard to keep going at times, but I knew it would get better eventually.

Day 1

·         Couldn’t run on the treadmill for more than 8-10 minutes at a time.  I had to stop and walk for a couple minutes in between to get to 30 minutes

·         Could do only about 5 push ups

·         Could not complete 25 reps of ab exercises without stopping

·         Had a hard time staying within my calorie restraints

·         Had a really hard time getting up early to work out

It’s hard for your body to start doing something that it’s not used to doing.  It’s easy to stay where you are and not change.  This blog was part of telling my self to stick to it, and not quit.  If I quit, not only would I feel bad about it, I would let you all down too.  That’s even worse!  How embarrassing!  That has kept me going at times when I really wanted to stop on my way in to work and get a yummy chicken biscuit. It is also what keeps me waking up early to go to the gym.  I knew one day, it would be easier.

I started to notice that things were easier last week.  It was during the whole heartrate-monitor-calorie-burn-fiasco [Day 61: If aFight with My HR Monitor], that I noticed that my calorie burn dropped.  Not only because of the faulty burn reading from my HR Monitor, but because my heartrate was lower during my workouts because I was more fit! My HR used to average around 155 during a workout.  Now it averaged 140-145 during the same workouts.  That means I’m getting better!!

Day 67

·         I can run for 20 minutes on the treadmill at 5.0 speed without stopping!

·         I can do about 20 push ups without stopping!

·         I can do more than 3 ab exercises [from P90X Ab Ripper] for 25 reps without stopping!

·         I can mostly stay in my calorie restraints [sometimes you need a microwaved moon-pie, really they are delicious!]

·         I get up 4-5 times a week at 5:45 am to go to the gym!

Yay!  I can do this!  The only thing about getting better that sucks is that burning the same amount of calories per workout will be that much harder.  I need to work harder to get my heart rate up to 150/160 where I need to burn 10 calories per minute.  I need to workout for longer to get the most calorie burn out of my workout.  This means, I need to up my time or really up my effort to get my heart rate up there.

So far, I have added small weights and jump rope to my circuit training.  This helps get the heart pumping in the times during the work out where my heart rate seems to dip.  This morning I threw in about 30 sec to 1 minute of jump rope during and after the arm exercises in the circuit to keep  my heart rate up.  [I am pretty sure I looked kinda silly jumping rope in my gym…ha!]  Then I added in a freaky core exercise an old trainer taught me, before my ab workout.  It’s called the Stability Ball Tuck [and Pike].  I haven’t tried the pike part yet though…it looks scary.  Right now, I just bring my knees in to my chest with my feet on the ball.  When I did this a few years ago with a trainer, my body would shake all over.  It was soooo hard!  Surprisingly, it still did that, but not as bad as back then!!??!!  Crazy huh!  I’m gonna keep doing it.  You should try it too!  Here is a video of it on YouTube.  Gotta love the groovy music with it…ha.  This girl does an awesome job!  She’s with www.fitsquad.ca.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc_OR8I_eDA

Now that I can do more than I used to do, I need to step it up.  Anyone got any suggestions on how to ramp up my workouts? Please comment on the blog or on Facebook!!  THANKS!!!

And thanks for keeping me going!! J