Things I'm Loving This Week

1. This song is amazing. This girl is only 16 years old and hails from New Zealand. Love new music especially when it's this good.

2. Starbucks and the gift card Oscar gave me just because.

3. This...

4. The fact that I turned down free pizza at work and stuck to my Body For Life diet. That's how I know that I'm committed. Go me!

No BFL on Fourth of July

I didn't adhere to the Body for Life program yesterday and I don't feel guilty or disappointed. It was a national holiday and I wanted to barbecue with my family...and so I did. I didn't stuff my face but I also didn't measure out proteins and carbs.

Today though, it's back to the drawing board. I'm back on track and I'm doing okay so far. Tonight I will be doing my cardio workout that I was supposed to do yesterday. I will be working my arms out tomorrow as well as doing the cardio. I will take Sunday as a rest day as scheduled.

My Arm Workout Left Me Sore...

I'm all caught up! I did my cardio and arm workout yesterday. I spent a good hour and a half in my garage getting the workouts done. My arms and chest are really sore today.

(Source)

For the future, I'm making a mental note that I will not be doubling up workouts again. It's just too much and the entire reason why I started Body For Life (BFL) was to find balance in my workouts.

Tonight I'm working out my legs. I'm not looking forward to the workout, but the leg workout is a lot shorter than the arm workout so I'm looking forward to that.
___

On another entirely different note...

I have changed the design of my page once again. It's not a huge change but it was necessary. I made a special tab at the top dedicated to Body For Life. This is where I have listed my goals, the dates I will be doing BFL and where I will be posting links to my daily posts. The drop down recipe page and workout page have not been filled out yet, but I'm planning on doing that tonight or tomorrow when I have more time. I also condensed the Home/Garden tab to only include home projects. If you take a look you can already see that I've already started posting all the home projects I want to work on this year.

I also wanted to mention again that my food journal is open over at Myfitnesspal.com. If you look on the right sidebar you can see the link to get there.

Body For Life Workouts

Today I worked out my upper body…

It's an old picture but it's the only one I have of me flexing.

Body for Life (BFL) is a very simple program when you actually look at the components that it is made up of. Basically, you workout 6 times a week, alternating weightlifting days with cardio days. On the weightlifting days you alternate lower and upper body exercises. The breakdown looks like this:

M: Upper Body
T: Cardio
W: Lower Body
Th: Cardio
F: Upper Body
S: Cardio
Su: Off

On cardio days you are supposed to do HIIT type cardio for 20 minutes. I like to run intervals as my cardio. For one, I love my treadmill and love racking on the miles. Second, I can watch TV while I do it. Right now I’ve started the whole Desperate Housewives serious... Hahaha! The rule is, I can only watch it if I’m busting my ass on the treadmill. Last, my amazing treadmill already has a built in interval program that does all the interval work for me. There is no need for me to fumble with the settings during my workout. I only have to set it up at the beginning and BAM! I’m off like a bat out of hell…lol. I love my treadmill. Have I said that before??!?!?!

Upper body days workout your shoulders, back, biceps, triceps and chest. BFL uses a technique called “pyramid weight lifting.” An example of this would go something like this:

5lbs. – lift 12x
8lbs. – lift 10x
10lbs. – lift 8x
12lbs.—lift 6x

However, BFL does something a little bit different. The pyramids on BFL look something like this:

5lbs. – lift 12x
8lbs. – lift 10x
10lbs. – lift 8x
12lbs.— lift 6x
10lbs.— lift 12x
10lbs.— lift 12x of a different exercise for the same muscle group.

This same technique applies to the lower body exercises as well. Lower Body days workout your hamstrings, quadriceps, calves and abs. Leg days are a little shorter, but they are brutal. These are the days that leave me unable to use the bathroom because my legs are in so much pain that I its ridiculously hard to sit down on the toilet.

Guess what!

Tomorrow is my first leg day. Wish me luck!

Being on a Diet is Hard!

So it's not a diet, but it's hard! The reason the eating portion of Body For Life (BFL) is so hard is that you have to balance your carbs and protein. I'm finding (or I already knew) that natural sources of protein aren't enough to keep my ratio in balance. Thus, the diet is hard and I'm finding that I'm going to have to average 2 protein shakes a day.

Does this mean that I'm going to fail at this? Ummmm, no! You should know me better by now. When I say that I'm going to do something, I flippin' do it! This just means that I'm going to have to get creative and actually PLAN and COOK all my meals AND guzzle protein shakes like nobody's business.

I truly suck though! Read on...you'll see why...

On the workout front, I've already failed. Well, not failed, I just haven't started the workout. Last night we took Liam to see Monster's University (finally).

I didn't get done with putting him to bed and my chores until 10! At that point I thought, "I'll double up the workout tomorrow." So yeah, that is what I'm doing tonight. I have the upper body workout to complete along with 20 minutes of crazy, balls-to-the-wall cardio.

I'm fine with that! I should still finish around the 1-1.5 hour workout mark. Not too bad and considering it's not my legs that I'm working out tonight, I think it's totally doable. Would I do my legs and cardio on the same night?

Yeah right!

Body For Life: The First Day

It’s about mid-day and I’m sailing through the first day of my Body For Life journey. Tonight I have an upper body workout planned. I love working my upper body because it’s so wimpy and it feels good to beat it into submission…hahaha!

It hurts so good!

Ha!

I think I am doing okay with the eating portion of BFL. However, I notice that I am going to need some recipes right quick or else I'm going to get bored. I need to find combinations that balance out my protein to my carbohydrate ratio. For instance, right now I am at 110g Carbs and 105g Protein. It's really close to equal but I've had to drink 2 protein shakes to keep my protein even near my carbs. I'm going to boil eggs tonight and eat a few of those for a snack tomorrow but I fear that protein shakes will have to become a way of life for the next 12 weeks.

This is where I stand as of now on the whole macros breakdown:

On another note, I'm wearing my Bodybugg today. Those extra 419 calories added above are from the Bodybugg. It talks to my Myfitnesspal account and I've opened my food log just for you guys to be able to see what I'm eating. This entire journey is going to be transparent and I want to show my readers that if the former fat kid with asthma I can do this, then anyone can.

So it's not only my first day of BFL but it's also my first day wearing my Bodybugg. I took a break from wearing it for a week. I wasn't logging my calories so it became sort of meaningless to put the Bodybugg on. So I'm starting from scratch on my stats but I should have averages again by next Monday. I look forward to watching how the BFL challenge translates into numbers on my Bodymedia Fit software. I really love my Bodybugg and I don't regret buying it at all.

One more thing, I've added a new Body For Life Page to track my entire journey. It's under "Workouts." It's nothing to look at right now, but it's only my first day of BFL...so hold your shorts!!!

Later Gators!

Body For Life Food List

Today I am heading out to the grocery store to get prepared for my first week of Body For Life (BFL). I am going to go shopping for the following proteins, carbohydrates and vegetables:

Protein	Carbohydrates	Vegetables	Good Fats
Chicken Breast
Turkey Breast	Bake Potato	Broccoli	Safflower Oil
Lean Ground Turkey	Sweet Potato	Asparagus	Sesame Oil
Swordfish	Yam	Lettuce	Olive Oil
Orange Roughy	Squash	Carrots	Canola Oil
Haddock	Pumpkin	Cauliflower	Avocados
Salmon	Steamed Brown Rice	Green Beans
Tuna	Steamed Wild Rice	Green Peppers
Crab	Pasta	Mushrooms
Lobster	Oatmeal	Spinach
Shrimp	Barley	Tomato
Top Round Steak	Beans	Peas
Top Sirloin Steak	Corn	Brussels Sprouts
Lean Ground Beef	Strawberries	Artichoke
Buffalo	Melon	Cabbage
Lean Ham	Apple	Celery
Egg Whites or Substitutes	Orange	Zuchchini
Low-Fat Cottage Cheese	Fat-Free Yogurt	Cucumber
	Whole-Wheat Bread	Onion

Starting Body For Life Next Week...

I need to get my butt back on track so I've decided that I am going to start the Body for Life program come Monday. 

I did the program back in March of 2012 for 7 weeks and then gave up. Within those 7 weeks I saw some muscle growth and according to my husband my arms where starting to show muscles. I wish I would have stuck to it, but the truth is, I wasn't in the right mindset to complete the program. 

However, this time I am. I need structure and I need a routine to follow. I also need a balance in my workouts. Since I don't have a schedule, I tend to do more cardio than weights. I need to do both to see the best results and I know this. 

I'm planning on using my Bodybugg during this time to accurately document all my stats. Yeah, you know me, I'm the numbers geek! I'm also going to use my body fat scale that I finally bought. That way if the scale has a lame number (like it usually does) I can still see my body composition stats and know what direction I am going in.

BEST PART OF ALL...

You are all coming with me on this 12-week journey! 

I want to document the ride. The reason why I want to document it is because there aren't too many people that write about the program day-in/day-out. I know when I started the last time I only found a handful of really good blogs of real people that were doing the program. If I was looking for it, I know other are going to look for it. So I'm going to share my experience for future Body for Life-ers.

I go grocery shopping for this adventure on Sunday.

Hope I don't break the bank!

Later Gators!