Friday Follow-up

Hi there! 

Hope you all are doing well and that your holiday seasons are enjoyable! 

First of all, thank you guys so much for the emails and texts I got supporting me in this journey.  It's a interesting beast, this white elephant in the room, and perhaps an interesting conversation about why its so hard to have this conversation about struggles with weight. But that's for another day. Suffice it to say, for now, that I love you and I'm glad you are my friend. :-)

 

Today I'm doing a quick accountability check in so you can see how close I am in getting to my goal.  As always, tips and motivations appreciated!

1	Wed	Bi and Jog	-400
2	Thurs	Shoulders and Abs -425	-425
3	Fri	Pull muscles and Jog -460	-460
4	Sat	Legs	-330
5	Sun	Yoga	-300
6	Mon	Push muscles (Back and Bi)	-325
7	Tues	Off
8	Wed	Jog	-425
9	Thurs	Sprint intervals on the Elliptical	-300
Total: -2965

Goal: 3857

So I know I need to do roughly two additional workouts to make up for where I should be at this point (much less getting ahead for when I leave on vacation next week for the final push!).  That being said though, I'm pretty pleased with this. I had an incredibly busy week with engagements 6 out of the 9 days that cut into my workout time. So for example, last night our neighborhood through a holiday party at a wine store near us.  We missed the block party when we moved in, so it was really important to both of us to go and meet the people we've been living around for almost 5 months! However, the party started at 6:30, and while I thought I would be able to get home early to get in my workout before, my meeting ran long, so we got to the gym at 5:30. BUT we both squeezed in a workout! I originally had been planning to do my "push day"* but decided to do some interval sprints on the elliptical to maximize my calorie burn since I knew I had a deficit this week.

Lessons learned so far:

1- In this hectic season, it might have been a little optimistic that I would still be able to do my 90 min workouts with lifting and cardio. Whether it means breaking it up into two workouts, or settling with one 30 minute workout before the party, its about remembering that a short workout is better than no workout! And going to work with your hair wet on Friday *probably* won't get you in trouble with the boss.

2- Your mind will quit before your body more often than not. On my jogs, I'm focusing on distance. I want to be able to run a 5K with no walk breaks, so I've been doing Galloway, as mentioned in some of my previous posts. Each session I'm slightly increasing up the time, but have been keeping at the same pace, since pace wasn't my goal. But after talking to SuperDan, I realized that since my conditioning felt like it could take the push, I just needed to go for it! Plus, we are talking about upping it .5-- nothing crazy! So on Wed I finally tested it out, and I must report, I did indeed survive, and I was pretty darn proud of myself!

3- Wine tastes better after you've done something to deserve it, i.e. sprint intervals. Even if it makes the old man on the elliptical next to you give you the evil eye as your machine rocks-- no shame girlfriend!

So for the next 8 days, I have to average about 540 calories a day burned to be on track for the goal. Ouch. Suggestions welcome! Saturday the 21st I will leave for skiing for 4 days, so I'm unsure how I'll track/if I'll count that or what my available options will be. I certainly don't want to count on having to make up time when I'm at Snowshoe!

What are your tips for getting maximum calorie burn in a short amount of time? Are you a HIIT girl too?

Oh, and has anyone heard or tried swimming with your HRM and specifically Polar watch? Will I ruin it?

Thanks, and have a happy Friday evening! :-)

December Challenge!

Well hey there December!!

I know we are all trying to figure out a way to counteract the extra calories we inevitably take in during the holiday social season, and of course, since I never do things the easy way, I'm actually still trying to LOSE weight this month. Rough. 

I won't mention how I have a memory of being in this same situation last year, and the difference (-5? maybe?) of my weight at this time last year as opposed to currently. Chalking it up as motivation NOT to be in the same place this time 2014.

I briefly flirted with doing the #RWRunStreak, but altering it to allow cross training to count as run days, since I think going from training for a 5K to running every day would be a little excessive, and then I realized- that ain't a streak no mo. Whomp whomp.

I'm motivated by the immediate rewards (feeling proud of myself after a good workout, rubbing it in SuperDan's face when I get in a 2 a day, etc.) by also by short term rewards, i.e. money. Yes, friends, I can be bought. What can I say? I'm a good American, and if I'm going to be hyper controlling of my diet, you can bet your bottom dollar I'm setting my sites on something bigger. But February and Savannah are a long time away. Momma's gonna need some stuff along the way. 

So far, I've rewarded myself with a season of Homeland and a Polar watch/chest strap that I use all the time. I practically feel like a workout is wasted if I don't have that strap on to validate my efforts and to keep me motivated to keep my heart rate.

As we've discussed in a prior post, I'm on team inputs (Thanks Meg for agreeing with me!) while SuperDan is team outputs. Team inputs means I'll reward my efforts, aka what I have control over, and trust that the outputs will come if I keep focusing on the right inputs. So, I've decided, if I burn X number of calories by Christmas day, I can buy whatever I want off my Christmas List that Santa leaves (I'm sure accidentally!) at the North Pole.

Here's my plan:
I've made "All Day" events in my Google Calendar in my Workout calendar for these three weeks. I like this because I can drag and drop the workouts I want to get in on different days if I need to change it up.

I also found this cute (and free!) calendar at ShopHollyDays where I've blocked out nights I know I won't be able to work out, so I make sure I get my butt out of bed those mornings and make it count. 

I also had to do some math. If you know me, that's more like "get to do," but never mind that. There are 21 days, including today, before Christmas. I wanted the number to be a challenge, but I also want to be able to have a few rest days where if I just do yoga or a walk I won't completely derail. So assuming 18 solid workout days, burning an average of 450 (?), that's 8100.  So because I want it to be a challenge, I'm bumping it up to 9000 calories in 21 days. 

I agree, 10,000 is a prettier number, but I wanted this to be a challenge, not dictating my life! :-)

I'll have to figure out how to count yoga, since I'm sure my fellow classmates would not be a fan of my Polar beeping at me when my heart rate drops. Any suggestions for the hour?

And here, the fun part, are some of the contenders for the reward:

Sweat Once a Day Bag at Lululemon

Rose Gold Knot Earrings at Kohl's

Freya sports bra. Y'all top heavy beauties gotta try them out!

I've been saving up for Dutch Oven for a while, so I might let myself cash in the extra $$ here and grab it!

Anyone want to join me? Post what your holiday challenge is, whether you are doing it solo, with someone in the online community, or friends/family!

Target Practice Tuesday- Guilt Begone!

This morning, as I was lamenting the 2 jerks that almost side swiped me in traffic, the rude guy in the forerunner that wouldn't let me in his lane and help a sister out, and fuming how AGAIN I was going to be late for work, I came across this article informing me of my failures.

Well great. As if I wasn't already frustrated enough with not being able to get out the door on time, which was rewarded with the aforementioned calamity of affairs, let's see what else I've managed to screw up before my second cup of coffee.

Turns out, the biggest error was what I was doing in that moment: thinking about how rough of a day its going to be with a start out like this one. So I took their advice to learn how to push the reset button for myself and thought about things I was looking forward to today. And the first thing I thought of scared the patootie out of me- "I get to lift weights tonight at the gym." 

Ummm what?

So then, going into spastic overachiever mode, I decided that I would do a Target Practice Tuesday today. But as soon as I opened Blogger and realized how long it had been since my last post, I almost started this post with a similar whiny, apologetic, introduction. But instead, I am practicing hitting my reset button- guilt begone!

So without further ado, here is my target practice for November 18:

Health: Slim down for Savannah is still going strong! We even bought our hotel! However,a  dear friend got married the second weekend of November and that resulted in more of a set back than I had hoped. About a solid 10 days later, I'm back to where I was the Monday before that wedding weekend. Eesh. Sad that it takes that long when I don't feel like I made *horrible* decisions that weekend. Anywho, my goal this week is keep calorie counting, and focus on eating more lean protein!

Fitness: Yesterday, after a lot of studying of my training schedule that did not materialize for the 5K Turkey Trot I'm doing on Thanksgiving, I decided its out of the cards for me to get to a place where I can run the distance without walking. I'm trying not to let that be a defeat (although I am frustrated that this is my second 5K I've signed up for now where I haven't committed to running enough to get there). I'm loving my weight training and don't want to curb that to incorporate more running, so I will be doing the Galloway method for the race. My focus is to do my prep runs on the days I've scheduled them: Mon, Wed, Sat, Mon. Also will be pushing for 4-5 strength workouts over the week.

Life: Try not to stress out/over plan the upcoming week so much that I feel so much nervous energy as I do right now. Between Thanksgiving planning, cooking, decorating, Christmas list shopping, etc, I can fill my plate with entirely too much (although usually fun things to do) and forget to plan time to NOT do. Once I make my menu and cooking schedule, I WILL LEAVE IT ALONE. IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE REDONE. Here's to hoping this Type A doesn't fly for the coo coo's nest before next week's check in.

Hope your plans are coming together! Would love to hear your goals for the week as well! :-)

Target Practice Tuesday

Yall. My B. For some reason, every time I've thought about blogging lately I have had like zero, I mean crashing in bed at 9:30 while bf does dishes/fall asleep with the lights on zero, energy! I blame cooking incredibly low carb for the bf the past couple of weeks, which in turn is lowering my carb intake more than I realize.

Plus, its also fun to blame the bf for something (else). :-)

Seriously though, I'm going to try to focus on making baby steps. I'm doing *pretty well* holding myself accountable to our plans and have so far been seeing some positive results, although the lack of energy is not one I would categorize as positive.

Baby Step #1: Target Practice Tuesday

The ladies over at Fit.Fun.Femme put up their Target Practice every Tuesday, choosing goals for life, fitness, and health for the week. I think this is a great idea, especially for Type As- like a New Years resolution without so much pressure and a way to pick/drag yourself out of a slump every week should the need arise. Particularly for me, I notice when I'm trying to control one area of my life (weight/fitness) I either go into hyper-anxiety mode about the other projects I'm not focusing on (house set up) or completely let myself go (shopping--come on I deserve this!). This seems to be a good way to bite off little pieces at a time and still be productive.

So without further ado, my first official "Target Practice Tuesday!"

Fitness: The bf and I have committed to making weight lifting a part of our workout routine this month. Wait...that makes it sound like we had an actual conversation about it. Let's try that again. BF and I have been going to our neighborhood Snap Fitness probably 4-5 times a week, solely lifting weights. I really like weightlifting because I like feeling strong! Sometimes a bad cardio day can make me feel the exact opposite. This week, I've decided to try the Bob Harper, 3 on 1 off routine, for my workouts. I've pegged my day off as Thursday. My goal is to get these six workouts in, because next week I hope to get back to adding in cardio so I can start back training for a 5K. I've been doing Jamie Eason Body Building Phase 1, and should finish that this month, which also calls for no cardio. I'm skeptical of the no cardio, but hey its something new to try!

Friend me and follow me- User name DancinBabe923

Health: Keep logging my calorie counts for the day. It makes it difficult when I try to experiment with new Atkins friendly recipes for the bf, but I never feel good eating and not knowing how much of what I am eating. I'm always glad that I've done it, even if I am not super enjoying the process! 

I need a name for Chair. This is her in the showroom before she came home. Not a great picture- she is much happier here.

Life: Because we will be in town for the first weekend in a while, I am going to focus on getting a house project done- unpacking the home office. Bf got me a beautiful chair for my bday and my dad got me a beautiful desk when I started law school a while back, and both are sitting in that room lonely and neglected. While there are lots of fun things going on in Raleigh this weekend (Scary Carey, State Fair, UNC v. BC, Gravity IMAX, new golf clubs to try) I want to do the things I'm REALLY interested in and still allow for plenty of time to notice an improvement on the house. We are usually on the go on the weekends, which explains why since we moved in in August the house is getting set up at a snail's pace. We need to take advantage of the downtime this weekend and not fill our social calendar with things that impede making our house a home.

Do you have goals for this week? Any tips for goal making?

Sunday Setup, Shoutouts, and ADHD workout planning

Happy Sunday yall!

One of the many great lessons I've learned from Katrina and Karena @ToneitUp is to dedicate Sundays to prepping for the week. Now sometimes (read most!) this is a bit of a PIA when the bf is watching football in various states of catnapping, but it *always* pays off and I'm so glad I've done it throughout the week. My Sunday setup involves meal planning for the week (taking into account when we will be dining out for lunch and dinner to make sure we make good choices on the other evenings when we have more control over our menu) meal prepping. The bf has just started Atkins again, which I reserve the right to write a venting blog post about later, but that means A LOT of chopping vegetables for snacks during the work day and prepping meat and cheese roll ups. This last Sunday I also prepped a chopped mix of onions and green peppers and grilled up turkey sausage so that our scrambles in the AM would be ready to go and that worked out great!

But dag nabbit. Sunday showed up again! And so here I sit, trying to enjoy the process. Though it does make it easier when you have a little snuggle bug by your side.

Of course now she acts camera shy!

Like many Type A's out there, I find myself completely over analyzing/over planning/over thinking how to *best* work out and eat right this week. If I spent a fraction of the time actually doing the things instead of reading about them, I probably would see success much more quickly. But that being said, I enjoy the research and creativity from my friends and friends I have yet to meet on the web, so I thought I'd share a few along (and work them into my Sunday Routine as well!)

Teri at A Foodie Stays Fit is a friend of a bunch of girls I went to law school with, but I have yet to meet in person unfortunately. She has such a positive attitude and an infectious smile. While there are a million things I love about her blog, one of my favorite things is the Weekender she posts, which includes fun links to articles and a recap of her workouts that week. Being someone who feels like I'm constantly worrying about how/when to work out, I enjoy seeing how other people stack their weeks and use it for motivation. So, forgive me for starting my SlimDown Challenge on Wednesday/I was in Syracuse with family Sunday and Monday/I hurt my back trapeezing and can't do much/Excuse excuse excuse, but here is mine for the past week (would love suggestions for a icon/pic for this portion of the blog!):

S: Walk with my sister 

M: None

T: Strength- Chest and Tri (Doc has not cleared me for runs at this point, but suggested working in upper body strength)

W: Walk in the AM with bf and pup

R: Strength- Back and Biceps

F: Short walk in AM with bf and pup

Sa: Legs (really feeling them this morning!) and 2.5 mi walk with bf and pup

Thanks to one of the Monday Motivations from @TIU I'm following the Jamie Eason Body Building for the time being to focus on strength training this month. I had been doing the Couch to 5K to train for my color run a few weeks ago, but wasn't really seeing the results I wanted from moderate cardio (no HITT and no strength) so I figured I'd try this for a month and see how it goes. She also says no cardio the first month while you are working on building muscle, which I'm skeptical about. 

Does the ADHD workout planning portion of the title make sense now? :-)

Check back in later today where I'll post my plan for the week, Sunday Setup tips, and another Shoutout to one of my favorite blogs. Here's a teaser:

As always, I love and live for the support and motivation of this community. Post your workout recap or Sunday Setup in the comments below!

NYE Challenge with a V Day Reward

Hi all! 

So I don't have much time to blog prior to my AM BC, so forgive me for skipping over the formal introductions. I'll come back and bore you with the "how I got here" later. All we need to focus on now is that I'm here, and I've made a decision not to be any more.

Basically, my live in boyfriend and I both struggle with our weight, despite thinking about it constantly and me planning out meals and calorie counting etc. BF has had a lot of success with Atkins, which drives me bonkers. After many starts and restarts, fastforward to today.

Today BF starts Atkins, but I convinced him to do a bigger challenge with me. 

Enter #NYEDrop20.

Ok 21.6 to be exact, but it doesn't have quite the same ring.

If I make my weight goal, and BF makes his, we are going to go to Savannah for Valentines day!

I also need to set smaller goals and rewards along the way. Our first goal mark is two weeks from today and the reward will be buying season 2 of Homeland. We kept arguing about whether the goal should be input based (10 workouts in 14 days) or output based (lose 5 pounds) so I think we are going to do both. I think that it should be based on what you can control (input) because you want to reward your efforts- also I'm nervous because I'm not at all confident that in two weeks even if I did everything right would happen! I rarely see any significant rewards from my efforts, so its hard to believe it can actually happen. Any thoughts? 

My two week mark will be 10 workouts in 14 days and 4 pounds. If we both get both of our goals = Homeland. If I get both of mine = new gym duffel. Any suggestions on if I just get one, or on the input vs. output?

A previous journal I kept had me at about the same weight in December as I am now. Hopefully that should serve as some motivation right?

Talk soon, and will make a workout schedule for the rest of the week later on today.

Love, B