I'm on fire!!!

The last two days I've been lifting heavy at night. I started on Wednesday because well it’s in the middle of the week and they say fitness/diet programs that are started on a random day (rather than on a Monday) are more likely to succeed. I know that I don’t need a statistic to succeed. My determination comes from within, but that statistic was just a justification as to why I started on Wednesday. Are you still with me? Hahaha!

So I started with chest and triceps two nights ago and I am still sore EVERY WHERE! I was doing this DVD:

Cathe (the trainer) has you do drop set push-ups.  Drop set push-ups are defined as:

“a strength method used primarily by bodybuilders to increase exercise volume per set. It works by lowering the resistance being lifted at strategically timed points throughout a set thereby allowing the lifter to perform more repetitions than they otherwise would have been capable of. The resulting increase in exercise volume helps stimulate muscle growth.” (Source)

So she started her drop set at 18 and worked her way (by 2’s) all the way down to two 2-count push-ups. To say the least, my chest is on fire today. However, you would never guess that from doing push-ups my abs would be screaming too! Every time I sneeze I feel like I’m getting punched in the lower gut.

It’s awesomely painful! J

Last night, I worked out my back and biceps. Again, I used a Cathe video.  She worked my biceps to failure so I know I’m going to be sore come tomorrow. However, I’m not sure my back is going to be sore from the workout or if it is already sore from all the push-ups. My lats are on fire! I can barely lift my arms above my head. Have you ever tried to wash your hair after a tough arm workout? Yeah, I had my elbows leaning against the shower wall as I washed my hair. Hahaha!

I love weight lifting. I can’t wait to lean out and see all the muscle I am building. It’ll come next month when I start doing cardio again.

Oh yeah! I’m not doing cardio for the next 4 weeks. I’m solely concentrating on building muscle mass. Then next month I will reintroduce the cardio 2-3 times a week. The reason I switched it up from running all the time and now to lifting weights is because I need to boost my metabolism. It’s been taking a snooze and I am pretty much in a huge plateau. I know my body, and I've been here before. No amount of running will get me down to where I want to be. I need the muscle mass to help burn the fat!

In addition to the workouts, my eating has been spot on. I haven’t cracked once this year! I've been eating my high protein food which is why I probably don’t crave anything. I always feel so full! I’m hoping that the combination of my high protein diet and heavy lifting will promote muscle mass. This really is a leap of faith on my part because it is so hard to let go of my running, but I know that building muscle is the next step in this journey. I just have to have faith that it will work.

On another note, it looks like we are finally getting our blinds installed in our house. FINALLY! Back in November we got our windows replaced and our original blinds no longer fit in the window sills. So we've been rocking bed sheets as our stylish window treatments for about two months now. I’m excited to be getting my blinds because I miss natural light coming into our house. I've been feeling a little like a vampire lately. No light comes in when you have dark bed sheets up as curtains. It’s depressing, so I’m happy it will soon be over.

My Passion

Everybody has something that makes them get butterflies in their stomach, goose bumps on their arms and if you are emotional like me, teary eyed!

I am obsessed with nutrition and working out. 

I am obsessed with muscles. 

Even though it started for vanity purposes, my obsession grew as I grew. It's not because muscles are pretty and give our bodies amazing shape. For me, it's because I know the dedication and hard work that it takes for someone to burn the fat and grow muscles. So when I see it, I'm literally in awe of that person and admire their dedication. Admit it; you know it's not something everyone can achieve. Many attempt it, but fail. Many attempt it and can't keep it up (like me). Few have achieved it and maintained it. Truthfully, everyone wants to be fit and healthy. Nobody sets out to become overweight, obese or morbidly obese. It just happens because we make bad decisions. Decisions to eat crap and move less!

I am a true believer that every small step taken towards better health counts. Heck, I started on this trip by just cutting out my after dinner snack. The thing about getting healthy is that it feels like such a daunting task. I know. I've been there! Setting out to lose 40 lbs. felt like I was attempting to climb Mt. Everest! Then I remembered, in order to climb a mountain, you need to take small steps. So I started with the things that seemed easy enough to cut out.

After cutting out my evening snack, I vowed that I would only eat refined sugars if I was at an event or visiting my family. I primarily decided this because I didn't want to make people around me feel uncomfortable. Let’s face it, eating is a social event and when you are not joining in on the eating, it makes people feel either bad for what they are eating or at the very least uncomfortable. Also, I didn't want to feel stressed out at what I could and could not eat at an event or if there would be ANY healthy food for me to eat at the gatherings.

My third step was to start walking/jogging/running for at least 45 minutes at least 5 times a week. This meant that if I was going to fit this into my day it would have to happen late at night after the kids went off to bed. Unfortunately for me, I am not a morning exerciser. I need my hot shower to wake me up every morning. This means that when everyone is cuddled up on their couch catching up on American Idol, I’m schlepping my ass onto the treadmill.

At first, this was difficult. It took me almost 2 years to actually stick to working out this late at night. If you look at my journals there have been soooooo many failed attempts at working out late at night. IT IS NOT EASY!!!! There were times when I would stick to it for 6 weeks and then just on whim I wouldn't feel like it one day and that one day would somehow turn into two days, three days, etc. It never became a habit until May of this year. Honestly, I don’t know what was so different this time around from the rest of the times. That’s a lie. I do know. I was sick of being depressed and I knew my only remedy would be exercise. For me, it felt like life or death. I was that desperate for change. 

Now it's just a part of my life that I actually look forward to. My sessions have doubled in time since I started. I spend a good hour and a half working it in my garage, daily if possible.

My fourth step was to write down the numbers for all of the steps above. I had been avoiding it through May and June. I think I got burned out on the structure of being healthy. I got burned out on the counting of calories. It felt so rigid and I just wanted to find my joy in exercise and eating healthy again. So when my husband purchased my treadmill on June 30, I just knew it was time to start crunching numbers. I went back onto Myfitness Pal and reassessed my calories and put in my weight and I just started from there. Since then, I count calories every day. I've found my joy in playing the “health” game again and boy does it feel good!

Of course, I am not finished by a long shot! For me there are so many old goals that are signing back on as new goals in my life. I have committed myself to myself again. The way I see it, I am the only person that will accompany me through my life. Why not take care of myself? 

Reboot and Refocus

I haven't been to this blog in a looooong while. I walked away for awhile because I just didn't feel like blogging about my life and my struggles. It was too depressing and I would sit in front of a blank screen and stare. The fact that I couldn't write was the thing that was getting the best of me. I can ALWAYS write. It's something that comes naturally to me and to not be able to was just pissing me off. So on an impulse, I shut down the blog until today.

In the meantime, I kept at my goal. Yes, I have lost 26lbs. and have 14lbs. to go. I'm over the midway hump and I'm finding that I really need to focus and write down exactly what I want to accomplish. Let me explain, yesterday was my Stepson's birthday and to celebrate the day we went to City Walk. As my husband was driving us there, I was staring out my window thinking about my health, my fitness and what really drives me in life. I was mainly thinking of what I want to do with myself. I think I have proven that I still have enough willpower and self-discipline to lose weight. Now I just need to fine tune and hone in on a legitimate goal with a timeline. Otherwise, I'm just going to be losing weight until I hit a certain number and I think I've evolved past the "I just want to be skinny" mentality.

My original goal was to shed 40lbs. by my birthday and seeing as my birthday is right around the corner, I'm not sure that I'm going to make it. I actually don't want to make it. Losing that much weight in such little time will not keep it off. I'd rather go slow and steady and NEVER get fat again!

Anyways, instead of rambling on and on, I'm going to just write it out here.

This is my Reboot & Refocus goals:

1. Lose the remaining 14lbs. I originally set out to lose by the end of the 2012. (This is a pound/week goal.)
2. Continue working out 6-7 times a week. --Totally doable!
3. Begin weight lifting 2x a week. (Mondays & Thursdays)
4. Continue running on days I do not lift.
5. Continue eating right, but maybe increase my calories to 1400-1600 a day. Eating 1200 calories a day has become boring. I eat the same foods at the same time everyday. (A trait that will make me an excellent figure competitor I'm sure.)
6. To stick to all of the above.
7. To re-evaluate my goals again at the end of the year.

***ULTIMATE GOAL***

To compete in a figure competition.

Still going strong...

I am on week 7 of BFL.

However, I do have to mention that I skipped one workout last week. I skipped a leg workout because I was so fatigued. The good news is that I'm feeling a lot better and yesterday was the start of week 7. So far, I've lost 9lbs. as you can see to the right. I have also lost a lot of inches. My jeans are really lose on my legs. The sad part is that my stomach is acting retarded and not losing the weight. I'm really saddened by this because I just hate my stomach.

I love my son, but he ruined my stomach. I used to have a super flat stomach. Now, it's puffy and soft. Thank God he didn't give me stretch marks, but still the shape it took after pregnancy is similar to a ball of dough. Lumpy and very round. I think it's going to take mega kickboxing and for many months to get it to whittle down. I feel like that is my biggest challenge.

On a good note, my ass is off the chain! All those lunges, squats and dead lifts have raised my butt and made it rounder. I'm thankful for having nice legs and a nice butt. A lot of women have square, flat butts but thankfully I've always had a nice unker-dunker :)

So yeah, I'm still killing it in my garage on an almost daily basis.

Did I mention last time that I'm running faster and longer than I ever have in my life? Yeah, the fat asthmatic kid is running and enjoying it! Go figure!

Still at it...

This morning was awesome. I woke up, stepped on the scale and saw a number I haven't seen in over a year.

I can believe that I am losing weight because I am working REALLY hard. However, seeing the number on the scale move down is just so surreal. I think because nothing has really happened in the last 3 years and I've tried a lot of things to try to get that number to decrease. I'm really glad that I'm sticking to the BFL program. I am on Week 5, Day  4. Today is running and I can't wait.

That is the thing about losing weight, if you don't see it happening you get discouraged, but the minute you lose a little you get even more dedicated to the cause and work that much harder which in turn makes the scale go down even more. The thing is getting that stupid scale to start to move!

I've also noticed that my jeans are fitting me a lot looser in the legs and butt area. My waist however is still the same, which sucks because I want to really get rid of the mama belly that I still have from Liam. I know it will happen, but it will be slow and happen last.

You know it’s bad when you have to start with a disclaimer…

Disclaimer: I am not giving up. I plan to complete what I set out to do. This post is just a rant.

Yesterday was a really bad day for me. My mood was awful and I was just feeling completely frustrated. I made the mistake of taking pictures of myself in my bikini and comparing it to my old pictures. I felt really good about myself and accomplished yesterday since I completed a month straight of working out 6 times a week. I thought it would show in my body. NOTHING has changed. I’ve lost weight, but god knows where because I still look the same. I’ve lost 7lbs., from where? Is beyond me.  I shouldn’t have taken the pictures. I shouldn’t have expected anything to show in just 24 workouts. I just mentally felt like an athlete and what I saw was just the opposite. I felt defeated, dark and dim yesterday.

Thank God that yesterday was my day off from the diet and exercise and I took full advantage of it. I was so pissed I ate whatever I wanted. Trust me, if I could drink something alcoholic, I would have yesterday just to numb the pain. Its days like yesterday that make me wish I didn’t get raging hangovers and I could actually drink myself into feeling better. Huff!

HOWEVER…

Today is the first day of week 5 and I intend on killing it! I don’t care if it doesn’t show on my body. Inside, I still feel like an athlete and I feel like working out completes my life. Without it, I just have too much time on my hands and I become too self-destructive. So I’m chugging along solely because of this reason. Eventually, my retarded, defective body is going to have to respond….EVENTUALLY!

I can’t wait to get my body to match the athlete in my heart.

What's happening?

I’ve been bad…

I’ve been really bad about blogging.

The truth is I’ve just been busy. This doesn’t mean that I haven’t been working out or keeping up with my fitness. Actually, as I mentioned before, I’m doing the Body-For-Life program. I’m on my 3^rd week and it’s going really well. I’ve changed my approach to my diet dramatically from what I was doing before.

Before, I was counting calories. I was losing weight, but it was just happening too slowly. I also felt hungry a lot. I realized that the restriction of calories was too much and I wasn’t giving my body enough nutrients. I was consuming enough calories, just not enough nutrients. Does that make sense? If not, basically, I was eating a lot of diet food which had a small calorie count, but had no nutrients. I didn’t like feeling exhausted and misguided. Instead of giving up, I went back to my roots.

I’m not a runner. I’m not an aerobics queen. I don’t like pilates, yoga or any other girly type of cardio. I like weight lifting. I like watching my muscles grow and watching my body change. So I looked up on Google, “Weight lifting diet for beginners,” and I found Body-For-Life. The results that people have had with this program are amazing. No denying that this program works, however what attracted me to it is that it described macronutrient ratios that I could actually adhere to. It also seemed pretty basic and like it could fit my lifestyle and not be a big deal. Regular food that I already had in my fridge and a program that required all the equipment I already owned in my garage….perfect! Sold!

In the last 2 weeks, I’ve gained so much strength. I haven’t lost any weight to write mom about, but I feel good and I know that if I see this through, I will eventually chisel out the body that I know I want and deserve. The best part is that I’ve rediscovered certain foods that I forgot that I used to love. For example, cottage cheese with strawberries….delicious!

Another thing I love about the program, it’s efficient. You work out 6 days a week, but no more than an hour each session. On the 7^th day, you get to be lazy J and you also get a break from the diet and you can eat whatever you want. Sundays are my day off. Those are the days that I get to eat whatever I want. The first Sunday, I had Panda…lol. The second Sunday, I had a Mexican Pizza from Taco Bell…hahaha! Basically, I save my cravings for Sunday. Sometimes, the craving goes away. I mean at the beginning of last week, I wanted chocolate, chips and ice cream on my day off. I ended up only having a mexican pizza. I guess that’s the psychology behind the eating plan.

The workouts are going really well. The week looks as so:

M: Lower Body Workout (Alternate Upper Body Workout on following week)

T: HIIT Cardio (20 Minutes)

W: Upper Body Workout (Alternate Lower Body Workout on following week)

Th: HIIT Cardio (20 Minutes)

F: Lower Body Workout (Alternate Upper Body Workout on following week)

S: HIIT Cardio

I usually finish the weighted workouts within 45-50 minutes depending on how much I’m switching out the barbell with weights. I’ve seen the most change since starting this in my workouts. I’m much stronger and even had to go buy a few more 10lb. plates and 20lb. dumbbells this last weekend.

All in all, I feel great and I will finish the first round of this program right before Liam’s 3^rd birthday. I’m hoping that I will be in awesome shape by his party. I don’t think I will be exactly where I want to be weight-wise, but I will be a lot closer to where I want to be. I plan on doing a second round just too fine tune my body. After the two rounds, I will continue the format of BFL, but I’m going to have more variety in that I want to take group fitness classes (like spin) for the cardio and do Cathe Friedrich lifting videos for the anaerobic days.

Long time...

OMG! I feel like I haven't been to my blog in forever. You know what they say, life happens in between blog posts. It's the truth too! I've been really busy just taking care of myself and my son. I got sick, then my boy got sick and it's been nothing but cleaning up and comforting both myself and my son to feel better.

I think we are finally on the path to a good recovery and today I started counting my calories again. Whoot! I had to stop counting because I just wasn't doing anything good. Officially, I stopped for only 3 days. However, the workouts have been SUPER inconsistent! I'm picking them back up.

On another note, I got moved at work into my own office. I'm really excited about this for two major reasons. First, I'm not by the front door anymore. I don't know, I never have liked being close to the front door of any office I've ever worked out. I wasn't the receptionist or anything, but it just bugs me having people pass by every 5 seconds and interrupting my flow. Second, I'm excited to be far, far, far, far away from the candy basket. Not that I have had any candy from it since December 30th, but it's just annoying to see my office mates chomping down on chocolate while I'm stuck eating yogurt, nuts and apples....lol.

I'm looking forward to playing music in my office without someone else judging what I listen to and basically, I do better when I work in my own area. I get more done with less distractions.

So that's all for today. I'm going to sushi tonight with a girlfriend so my workouts will officially pick up again tomorrow night. Gonna start off with Body Fusion again and start throwing in dedicated days to arms, chest, legs, abs and back.

Feels good to be back after my short hiatus.

Frustrated

The past couple of days I've felt a little frustrated with the scale. I really want to throw it out the window. It doesn't move AT ALL!!! Since I've done this before I know that it's not the end-all, be-all. However, it still bugs me that it's not moving. The truth is, the last couple of days I've noticed my pants fit me a lot looser than before. It's quite rewarding, but still the stupid scale doesn't move down. I guess as long as it's not moving up, I should be okay. Who knows what's going on with my body? I'm doing circuit training, so weight lifting is happening. Maybe I'm just growing muscles???? Who knows?!?!?? I'm just a little frustrated.

Just a quickie...

Just wanted to check in tonight. I did my workout as planned. However, I was tired still and I still have DOMS. So although I did the workout, I didn't "kill it" like I told my husband I would...hahaha!

Dum-Du-Dum-Dum-DOMS

Holy hell! Last night, I got home and collapsed. At around 3pm I started to feel a little sore. Then, within an hour, like a curtain revealing a cast of actors, my entire body went into shock. I’ve had Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) before, but the worst DOMS is when you haven’t worked out in a while and then you give it your all (like I did two nights ago). All that enthusiasm that I wrote with yesterday is now trapped in the form of Lactic Acid in my muscles. In other words, I AM SO SORE!!!

I was so sore and tired last night that even my husband said, “Babe, you sound really tired!” He never notices such things, so for him to make the observation, I must have been exhausted. There was no way I was going to be able to do that workout again, so soon after doing it for the first time. In reality, I’m not even sure what I was thinking. I think I was just so hyped up because I had so much fun doing it the first time. So long story short, I didn’t work out last night. Nope! I just laid on the couch relaxing like I had just run a marathon. I guess this is my first reminder that it’s important to rest between workouts. Anyways, I’m still sore, but I’m good enough to attempt the workout again tonight. Before I went to bed last night, I told my husband (half asleep) that I was going to tear up the workout today…hahaha! That’s exactly what I’m going to do too!

30 Days!

I've been tracking calories for 30 days in a row! See...

What a good workout does for me…

I mentioned yesterday in my Nightly Recap post that I had started the Body Fusion workout by Cathe Friedrich. Well, I think it’s the best thing I could have done for myself. There is just something about circuit training and the challenge it presents that makes me want to rise to the occasion. I woke up this morning feeling VERY determined to continue this journey. I have been very motivated this entire time, but between last night and this morning, it just feels like something clicked for me. I feel like my passion for exercise is back. I have been looking for this passion for over 3 years. Actually, I’ve been looking for myself for the last 3 years. Being pregnant, then having a baby and never having time for myself caused me to feel like I had lost my sense of self.

I feel that FINALLY I am mentally getting where I need to be. I’m not sure if it has to do with the blogging again (which was such a HUGE part of my life before I had a baby) or if it’s the working out and eating right that is paving the path to a happier me. I think it might just be a combination of both things because these were the simple things that made me a happier person. Part of why I had to abandon my blog of 6 years was because it had turned so dark. I was so unhappy. Post after post was about my state of depression. When I went back to read it, I found it to be such a downer that I thought it better to just lock it away. I am not saying that I do not own the unhappier times of my life, however for the sake of getting to a happier place, I just had to start from scratch. Hence, this blog! Even the page layout is so much brighter than my last blog!

So with this all said, I’ve basically decided that I will continue doing what feels good. Body Fusion feels fun. I didn’t do it perfectly yesterday, so today, I feel like I want to do it again and try to complete all the cardio combos without having to stop. Thus, I plan on doing the workout again tonight. Wish me luck!

Nightly Recap...

Well for the last day of January and the first day back from being sick, I sure as hell brought my all! I know that I was supposed to stick to my workout rotation, but I just felt really good today and skipped ahead to the Body Fusion DVD. It's not like this is the first time in my life that I have done the DVD. I used to do this workout all the time when I was in really good shape and I knew exactly what it would demand from me.

The difference between the Body Fusion DVD and the Basic Step DVD that I've been doing for the past week and half is that the Body Fusion DVD is based on Circuit Training. The last time I got into really good shape, I did it by doing circuit training 3-5 times a week. I love the weight lifting aspect of circuit training and I love how it keeps your heart rate up the entire time. This is why I burned a ton of calories today.

Anyways, I just wanted to document my first day back from being sick.

January’s monthly goal completed. So what’s up for February?

At the beginning of the month, I set a goal on the right of my daily entries. The goal was to lose 4lbs. in January. I am so proud to announce that I have reached my goal and exceeded it by 1lb. I thought that I would reach it with ease and knew that it was attainable. My body is really stubborn when I begin a new fitness/eating regimen and it tends to hold on to the weight. I know that I will not see real visible results until maybe March. It can be discouraging, but because I know how this works, I know that eventually I will be rewarded for all the ground work that I’m setting down.

So what’s next for February?

Well, I’m setting another attainable goal of losing 5 more pounds. Combined with the first 5 that I’ve already lost, this should equal a total of 10lbs. down by the end of February. Again, not really visible results since I have so much to lose, but still attainable and still progress. To do this, I will continue to exercise at night as I have been. However, my eating will be a little different. I am lowering my calories to 1200 net calories for this month. This means that if I eat 1200 calories before exercising and then exercise and burn 300 calories, I will eat back those 300 calories[healthy stuff of course]. It sounds counter-intuitive, but I have this feeling that my body just needs to not feel freaked out over the restriction. I will tweak and adjust if need be by the second week in February.

Besides the weight goal, I’m also going to start setting a beauty goal. Last month, I didn’t really post what my beauty goal was going to be, but I had set out to get at least two pedicures. I got the first pedicure the first weekend of January, but then because the guy doing my toes went all Rambo on my toenails, I ended up getting a gnarly ingrown toenail. After 3 Epson salt baths and doing some bathroom surgery on my toe, I got the toenail to grow out and it went back to normal. Since I was a little apprehensive about going back to the pedicurist, I did the second pedicure at home.

Anyway, long story short, I will keep up with the pedicures but for this month my beauty goal is to whiten my teeth again. I’m going to go today to my local CVS and get some Crest White Strips. If you’ve never whitened your teeth before, let me tell you, it can be painful. This is why I never stick it out past 3 days! The pain is just too unbearable. I end up giving up. Well, not this time. I’m going to take a picture of my teeth before and after at the end of the month. Hope I stick to it!

Sweet 16

This might just be one of my favorite pictures of me.

It’s not because I was young and fit, but rather it represents a really great time in my life where I became me.

This picture was taken during the summer before my senior year of high school. This was the summer that I discovered MUSCLES J. At this point in my life I thought that anything was possible. If I wanted to be a doctor, I could have been. [[I didn’t, but still the possibility was open to me.]] Back then, my life consisted of grabbing my dog Lilly, getting in my car and going off to the beach. This was before boyfriends. [[Yes, my first boyfriend happened during my senior year and he sucked and I dumped him.]] I think that is why I love this picture so much. I can literally pin-point with this picture exactly when I was blossoming and finding out EXACTLY who I was.

Exercise was the one avenue that helped me realize who I was. While my “friends” were busy getting high on drugs, I was constantly high on endorphins. I lived for the challenge of a workout. I lived for the miles I would log on my dad’s treadmill. I was constantly happy. I was so happy that at times people thought I was manic. I was so happy because I had found fulfillment without NEEDING anybody or anything else but myself. This is where my strength came from. This is where I learned to not care what other people thought of me and to not be afraid to stand up for what I believed in, even if that meant standing alone. This is when I became ME.

Today, I’m still this girl. I might come in a different package and have a million responsibilities in life now, but I’ll never stop believing that everything is possible. I will always base my happiness on myself and nobody else…not even my kids. And like I explain to my husband, everyone who is in my life is in it because I CHOOSE to have them in my life…not because I need them.

Inspiration Board

I’m not sure my readers are aware of this, but I workout primarily in my garage. Back in August of 2011, I was running a lot on the treadmill in my garage. I think I booked about 25 miles in a month. That may not sound like a lot, but considering that before that I wasn’t running at all, it was a lot for me. During this time, I made an inspiration board and placed it above my treadmill so that when I would run, I would see what I wanted to accomplish and remain focused during my runs. I can tell you that this board helped me squeeze out an extra mile every so often because I would hype myself up in my own head just because I was staring at my inspiration board. Let’s fast forward to January 2012, when I stepped foot back into my garage and found my inspiration board yet again. I had totally forgotten about it and I was pretty stoked to find it in there.

Now that I’m not running as much, but rather doing aerobics and weight lifting, when I look over at my treadmill and see the board, I can usually pump out the last reps of a set and really concentrate on my form because I see on that board everything that I am working towards. When I am lifting, I imagine myself looking like Jennifer Nicole Lee one day. I imagine being on the cover of an Oxygen magazine. I imagine all my dreams coming true. All of these thoughts occur, just because I’m staring at this…

MIA

I’ve been MIA this last couple of days because I’ve been super sick. I think I’ve finally turned the corner and I’m on the mend. I had the worst cold that snowballed into an upper respiratory infection. I have been coughing and hacking up all shades of green and yellow…Bleh! I now think I have a sinus infection now too because my face hurts really badly after blowing my nose.

I have been trying to keep to eating well, but to be honest; I stopped counting calories the last 3 days. I was just drinking down too many Theraflus and not really eating anything. Once I started to eat, I tried to stick to healthy snacks. I have no idea how many or how little calories I consumed these last few days.

HOWEVER

It’s Monday. I’m feeling better and so I’ve already started measuring and counting again. I will also be working out today. It might be tough, but I think doing the physical activity will help clean up the phlegm.

So, I’m not longer MIA and I will be updating regularly again J

I am full on sick...

Despite my best efforts, I'm really sick. I'm having trouble breathing and I'm coughing all types of ugly gross things :(
I'm still trying to eat somewhat according to my calorie counts. However, it's tough to eat when you just feel sick.

I'll continue to check in and then pick up where I left off with the workouts and eating.

Totally Sick!

Remember a couple of days ago I wrote that I was feeling a little under the weather?

Well, I thought I got better and I was feeling pretty good.

Then last night before I was due to go out and do my stretching and abs, I started getting this horrible cough and my throat felt so sore and so raw. Since my stepson had tutoring and my husband didn’t come home until late, I decided to just not workout. I was feeling horrible anyways. I thought I would be disappointed in myself this morning, but the truth is, I woke up with a full blown cough/cold/sore throat/ upper respiratory issue. In other words, I feel like crap today!

This is so par for the course. Every time I try to start a new workout routine, I seem to come down with a cold or the flu. I have a theory as to why this happens. I think that my body is so used to actively living an INACTIVE life that when I expect something more from it than sitting on its ass, it protests and lowers my immune system. Then anything floating around, I catch! I think it does this to deter me from continuing my workouts. This time, I’m giving my body the big, fat, middle finger and I’m going to continue on with my diet and exercise regimen. This time, unlike any other time, I will persevere and be just as stubborn as my body is to drop the extra elle-bees! I’m tired of this and I’m not going to let a little sniffle and the fact that I’m coughing out my lungs stop me  being what I set out to be.

So with this in mind, I went out this morning to the CVS and maybe went a little overboard on over-the-counter remedies. I don’t know, you be the judge?

 

I really don’t care though. Right now, I will do anything to at least alleviate the symptoms so that I can have a successful day.

Talking about success, yesterday I stuck to my 1200 calories! It wasn’t that hard either! I think that the reason why it was so hard for me to initially drop down to 1400 calories in the beginning of January is because my portions were completely out of control. I ate healthy foods, I just ate too much! I can tell you that measuring spoon, cups and the food scale have really become my friends. I use them all the time now to judge my portions because my naked eye can’t do it yet. I can estimate 4oz of chicken, fish and meat, but that’s about it. If you ask me to serve a cup of something, I’ll probably over estimate by a lot. In the beginning of this month, my husband kept noticing that there were measuring spoons and cups in the sink. He asked me twice if I was baking something…lol. I explained to him what I was doing and now, the measuring spoons and items are just like any other dish in the sink.

On another note, I forgot to mention yesterday that I took my measurements. I had been meaning to take them since the beginning of January, but it kept slipping my mind. I have nothing to compare my measurements to right now, so all they represent is numbers. There is no loss or gain in the numbers so they don’t really matter.

Today’s agenda calls for Basic Step and Upper Body. I am praying that I will feel well enough by 7pm tonight to do the workout.

PRAY!!!