Saturday, April 30, 2011

Weigh in

This morning I weighed in at 235.6! That is a 4.4 pound loss since Monday, which puts me at 10% total weight loss! I couldn't be happier. Its about time I see some movement on the scale. Now I just need to keep this up.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Not ready to move on

Last night I finished week 4 of the C25K. I was able to do the whole thing without stopping, walking at 2.8mph and running at 3.6mph. However, I did feel like I was going to die the last couple minutes of each run! I think I am going to do another day or two of week 4 before I move on to week 5.

Week five has a different routine for each day. Day one is alternating 5 minutes of running with 3 minutes of walking for a total of 15 minutes. Day two is 8 minutes of running, 5 minutes of walking, and 8 minutes of running. Then day three is 20 minutes of running, no walking! I can't imagine running for 20 minutes straight when I can barely make it to 5!

Tonight I plan to do 30DS and go for a walk because its so nice out! I also have 9 points left for the day because work was so busy I didn't have time to eat. I will try to make a snack before the end of the night but I think I will still end up being a little short today.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Measurements

Measurements 4/27/11  (-4 1/2 inches since 3/28/11)

Neck               15  
Left Arm        16 3/4 (-1/4)
Right Arm      16 1/4 (-1/4)
Bust                45 1/2 (-1/2)
Waist               36 (-1)
Stomach          47
Hips                51 1/2 (-1)
Left Thigh       30 1/2 (-1/2)
Right Thigh     30 1/2
Left Calf          17 (-1/2)
Right Calf        17 1/4 (-1/2)
Weight: 238.6

 Yesterday I did the 30 Day Shred and walked on the treadmill for 20 minutes at 3.0mph (which is a fast walk for me). Today I was going to rest because I am pretty sore and I have been working 12 hour shifts the past 3 nights so I am exhausted, but I got called off my first four hours tonight so I am going to exercise before I go in to work tonight. I am not sure if I will just do something light like walking on the treadmill or if I will try to do C25K.

I weighed myself again today and was happy to see the scale moved! My weight was 238.6 which is down 1.4 pounds since Monday. Hopefully I can move past this plateau I have been at. I feel like I have just been losing and gaining the same 3-4 pounds since the middle of March. I won't officially weigh in for the week until Saturday but I was too excited to see that number not to share :)

Monday, April 25, 2011

Weigh in and C25K fail

I realized I forgot to weigh in on Saturday. My weight today is back up 0.8 pounds. Considering its my time of the month and I ate horribly all week, I am just glad its not more.

This evening I did day two of the C25K. It was a major fail. I did the warm up and the first half and then had to take an extra 5 minute walking break before I did the second half, and I also had to slow down the second half. All walking was done at 2.8mph. The first 3 minute run and 5 minute run were done at 3.8 mph. Then I did an extra 5 minute walk. The second 3 minute and 5 minute runs were done at 3.6 mph.

I got horrible shin splints after the first two runs which is why I had to take a walking break. I think I might have to do an extra day or two of week 4 before I move on. Today was much more difficult than day one, I wonder why that is? I will probably do day 3 on Thursday morning since I work 12 hour shifts the next few nights.

So far today I am back on track with my diet. I am actually 8 points short for the day but I won't be eating again since I will be at work. I figure that is okay since I ate so poorly this weekend. Tomorrow I have all my meals planned out and will be exactly on track with my points. Hopefully I stick with it all week!

Sunday, April 24, 2011

C25K Week 4

I didn't get a chance to work out yesterday or Friday. We had company both days and were just too busy. Excuses, I know, but that is what it is. So today I finally started week 4 of the C25K! Week 4 is 3 minutes running, 90 seconds walking, 5 minutes running, 2.5 minutes walking, 3 minutes running, 90 seconds walking, and 5 minutes running.

I did all of the walking at 2.8 mph as usual. The first two sets of running I did at 3.6 mph and the second two sets of running I did at 3.7 mph. Total running time = 16 minutes! That is much more than the 9 minutes total from week 3. Total running distance = .96 mile! However, I added an extra 3 minute run at 3.7 mph on to the end of my cool down which brings me up to 1.15 miles total running distance! I know it is split up into intervals, but still I have never run a mile in my whole life! I also added another 10 minutes of walking to my cool down for a total workout of about 45 minutes. I plan to do day 2 of week 4 either Monday evening before work or Tuesday morning when I get home from work.

Now that I got the good update out of the way... time for the bad. My diet has been awful this week. I have not tracked all week (I think I tracked one day). I have been extremely overeating. This has been such a stressful week. Our appointment with the fertility doctor, we had our nephews stay over, we are in a huge fight with my husband's family, my husband got pulled over, we got bad news about our fertility testing, plus the holiday and eating for that has made me eat and eat and eat. I am en emotional over eater so this is something I need to work on.

My goal is to get back on track this week. I am going to plan our meals for the week this evening so there are no excuses for eating poorly. We have eaten most of the junk food in the house so we don't have to worry about that. I need to get back on track!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Week 3 done!

Just a quick update before I go to work. This morning when I got home from work I did my last day of week 3 of he C25K. I did the walking intervals at 2.8mph as I usually do, and the running intervals I bumped up to 4.2mph for all of them! I struggled a lot with the last minute but I am thinking part of it is because I didn't eat before I did it and I also didn't eat at work so it had been a while since I had actually eaten. I definitely will make sure to have at least a snack before I workout to fuel my exercise.

I'm planning on starting week 4 on Friday, wish me luck! I'm pretty nervous about two five minute stretches of running and 16 minutes total running (the past two weeks have only been 9 minutes of running).

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

The Ultimate Goal

My ultimate goal with this weight loss journey is to lose enough to be able to get pregnant. We have known for a few months now that we are dealing with infertility.  We are waiting for one more test to come back but otherwise it is fairly certain we will have to do IVF.

Yesterday was our first visit with the fertility clinic. I know that being obese can make pregnancy more difficult and it can cause difficulties with the IVF itself. I want to be as healthy as possible before we do IVF so it has the best chance at working because we are paying for it entire out of pocket (our insurance does not cover IVF) and it has a price tag of $15,000 - $20,000 each try.

He said ideally a BMI below 30 is what they like to see, which is out of the obese category. I have a long way to go to get to that point so he said I really want to be at least in the 30s. My current BMI is 41. When I started this journey my BMI was 45 so I am down 4 points so far.

To get below 40 I need to lose 7 more pounds (232 pounds).
To get below 35 I need to lose 36 more pounds (203 pounds).
To get below 30 I need to lose 65 more pounds (174 pounds).

Since we have to pay for IVF ourselves we probably won't be able to try until the end of this year at the very earliest. That gives me at least 37 more weeks to lose this weight. If I want to lose 65 pounds by then, that is a loss of about 1.75 pounds a week. This is 100% doable if I just stick with it.

He suggested a low carb low sugar type of diet. I definitely think I need to do a diet overhaul. I am not willing to give up certain foods because I know myself and that will just set me up for a binge, but I can make smarter choices. Even though I have been doing weight watchers and sticking to my points, I have not been eating well. I eat whatever I want as long as I don't go over my points.  Honestly, that is what I love about the plan. But I need to make a few adjustments.

I can start eating whole wheat bread and pasta instead of white. I won't give up potatoes but I can eat them less often. I also need to eat more veggies and fruits. These are hard for me because I am an extremely picky eater. This is another thing I need to work on. The last thing I am going to do is cut down on my soda drinking and drink more water. I drink tons of water at work but when I am at home I drink diet soda. I gave soda up completely a couple years ago no problem but somewhere along the way started back up again. I only drink diet but its still not good for you!

I am going to slowly incorporate these changes into my diet so hopefully I can stick with them. I just need to keep my eye on the prize: a baby for me and my husband

30DS Level One Day Two

I fell asleep last night when my husband left for work and slept until 4am this morning. My sleeping habits have been so out of whack lately! This ruined my plans for doing the 30DS last night so I did it this morning. This is only my second day back into this program. I have to say, this workout is tough for me! I have to modify every move that modification is offered and I also modify some of the jumping jacks (shh, don't tell Jillian!). I am able to use 5 lb weights instead of my 3 lb weights for some of the moves (biceps, back, and chest).

I also must confess that the past few days have not been good for me diet wise. I have been stress eating and its not good. After my update yesterday I did good the rest of the night (probably because I fell asleep at 8pm!) but today has been horrible. I am going to try and do decent the rest of the day and start over fresh tomorrow.

I will update in a bit about our trip to the fertility clinic and my new plan/goals.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Not as well as I had planned

Yes, another post from me today :)

After our visit at the fertility clinic I had a bit of a slip from my eating plan for the day. I did have 10 points not planned for so I decided I wanted some french fries. I needed something comforting after our appointment. Then my husband bought us both a candy bar, and I couldn't turn that down. I also had a couple servings of reduced fat gardettos. So I used 14 of my weekly points today (once I eat my supper tonight, that is).

I am holding myself accountable though, which is impressive. I was planning on just throwing in the towel for the day and not tracking my points, which is what I tend to do once in a while when I go way overboard. I'll just decide not to track that day so my app won't show that I've gone over. But I decided that I need to be honest with myself and track it all. That's called growth, people! :)  As long as I stay on track the rest of the week I will still be okay.

Incentives

Sorry for all the posts this morning :)

When my husband and I starting trying to lose weight in January, we decided to give ourselves rewards or incentives once we lost certain amounts of weight. I wanted to do them every 10 pounds but my husband thought that would be too easy so we decided on every 15 pounds. We have both hit the 15 pound mark, I got a season of Lost on DVD and he got a PS3 game. The only rule for these incentives is they cannot be food.

I have 7 pounds left until I hit 30 pounds and get my next incentive. I'm not sure what I will get. At 45 pounds lost I hope to get a nice camera bag, so my goal is to hit that before our vacation in August. That is 22 pounds in about 15 weeks, which is a pound and a half a week. Very doable!

C25K W3D2

Done! I decided to just get it out of the way real quick. This time I increased my speed a little on the longer runs. I did walking at 2.8mph, the 90 second runs at 4.1 mph (last time was 4.0 mph) and the three minute runs at 3.9 mph (last time was 3.6mph). The first three minute run was actually pretty easy and the second one wasn't too bad until the last minute. Total distance: 1.42 miles. I am proud of myself for both finishing and increasing my speed! I plan to do day three on Wednesday morning.

Oops!

Well yesterday I was planning on doing day two of week three of C25K. My husband and I spent the day together since we both had Saturday night off (which is rare). My plan was to work out after he left for work last night. Instead I fell asleep about 6pm and just woke up at 2am! Normally I would be a little upset that I missed my workout for the day, especially since I took a rest day on Saturday, but I'm not. The reason I am okay with it? Because I finally got some sleep. If you remember from my previous post about sleep I haven't been getting more than 4 hours a night for over a week now. So the fact that I slept 8 hours straight is a miracle. I slept so soundly that I woke up with a stiff neck and a headache, I must not have moved the entire time!

My goal for today is to fit two workouts in. One before my husband gets home in the morning and one later in the afternoon while he is sleeping. I want to do both the C25K and the 30 Day Shred (30DS). I think I will try to do C25K soon because the treadmill is in the bedroom so I can't do it while my husband is trying to sleep, and I can do 30DS in the living room.

Today is our first appointment with the fertility clinic, so it is bound to be an emotional day. My goal is to just stay on track today. Its going to be a rough day.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

A loss is a loss, no matter how small

I had my official weigh in for the week yesterday. I am down 0.8lbs. I wish it were more, and I feel like it should be considering how good I have done the past week. But a loss is still a loss and now I am out of the 240's, hopefully forever!

Friday, April 15, 2011

Addicted to the scale

My last post got me thinking about how often I weigh myself. I am fairly certain I am addicted to the scale. It sits in our master bathroom calling out my name. I'd love to say I only weigh myself weekly but I would be lying. Heck, I would be lying if I told you I weigh myself once a day. It seems like any time I am in the bathroom I have to weigh myself. I weigh myself first thing when I wake up (and that it the weight I count for weighing in) but then I will also weigh myself after I exercise and after I go to the bathroom, just to see if there is any change.

I know this is excessive and I need to limit myself to at least once a day max, but its hard! I love seeing the numbers go down, it motivates me to keep up what I have been doing. Seeing the numbers go up makes me mad but also helps motivate me to do better. If I had been thinking of skipping my workout that day or eating a few extra points, seeing the number on the scale might stop me.

I also need to get a new scale. I could step on it five times in a row and get five different numbers. That drives me crazy too! I keep trying until I get two of the same number. I tried replacing the battery but  I think I just need a new one altogether. I think a trip to Target this weekend is in order!

Sleep and weight loss

I've always heard that getting enough sleep is an important part of losing weight. Well, this week I think proves that. I have not gotten more than four hours of sleep a night for the past eight nights straight. I weigh myself daily and the scale will not budge below 240. If anything it seems to be going up a little bit. I have been sticking to the plan so well this week, I've been eating within my points and I have exercised every day. The scale should be trending downward but its not. I don't know why I haven't been sleeping well lately, you would think with all the exercise I have been doing I would be tired. I work all weekend after being off for nine days so I am hoping to get some good sleep in this week!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

I did it!

Week 3 Day 1 C25K! I did it, the whole thing, without stopping once. Week 3 is 90 seconds of running, 90 seconds walking, 3 minutes running, 3 minutes walking, and repeat. I usually walk at 2.8 mph and run at 4.1mph. Since I knew this week would be a struggle I did all my walking at 2.8mph and the 90 second runs at 4.1 mph like usual (and even added an extra 90 second run during the cool down), but I slowed down to running at 3.6 mph for the 3 minute runs. My goal right now is running without stopping, I will work on speed later. 3.6 mph seems slow but its still running for my short stride. I am just so proud I ran 3 minutes without stopping, TWICE! Go me :)

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

C25K Progress-to move on or not?

In my last post I mentioned that I have been doing the C25K program. Last night I finished week two. Week three has two three minute runs in it and I honestly don't know if I am ready for that. I struggle with the 90 second runs in week two. Last night I did make the last run two minutes instead of 90 seconds, but that took about everything I had.

Realistically, it equals out to the same total running time: 9 minutes. It is just the running for three minutes straight that scares me. Before starting this program I had never run a minute in my whole life. I think I am going to try it out but if I can't do it I will repeat week two. I don't want to give up but I also have to be realistic. I will let myself repeat each week if needed but only once. I CAN do this!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Exercise

I try to switch up my exercise each day so I am not always doing the same thing. Currently I am doing a few different workouts.

C25K
So far I am really enjoying this program. For those of you not familiar with it, the goal is to get you from sitting on the couch to running a 5K in 9 weeks. You do a 5 minute warm up walk and then 20 minute walking/running intervals 3 days a week. Each week the amount of time running is increased. Before starting this program I never ran in my life, so this is a pretty big step for me. I have started and quit this program multiple times, never getting past week one. 

Week one was one minute running intervals and 90 second walking intervals. I am currently on week two and have done two out of the three days! Week two consists of 90 second running intervals and two minute walking intervals for 20 minutes. I have short legs for my height so I cannot run as fast as most people, but right now my goal is just to be able to run without stopping and I will work on speed later. Currently I am walking at 2.8mph and running at 4.1 mph. This might not seem very fast but it is definitely a struggle for me!

Week 3 consists of running for 90 seconds, walking for 90 seconds, running for 3 minutes, walking for 3 minutes, and then repeat the whole thing. I am nervous about running for 3 minutes straight!

Biggest Loser
The other workout I am doing is the Biggest Loser Workout. It is a dvd that I have had for years and never used until my husband broke it out a few weeks ago. The dvd I have is the original. It has cast members from season 1 and 2 and Bob Harper leads the whole workout. There are 4 different segments: Low Impact Cardio, Strength, High Impact Cardio, and Bootcamp which is weights and cardio combined. I have done all the segments except the High Impact, I only made it through the first half without stopping. This is not the most challenging workout but it does get my heart rate up since I am so out of shape. I alternate between the workouts every few days.

Walking
I am also doing plain old walking on the treadmill. I try to do a 3.0-3.2 pace, which is a pretty good pace for my short legs and does get my heart rate up a bit. I also pump my arms rather than hold on to get the most out of it. We also have been walking our dog outside more now that it has warmed up some, but she doesn't really let us keep a good pace so I try to make sure to get more exercise than just that.

The Firm: Max Cardio
This is another old dvd I have that I love. I used this all the time in high school when I was much thinner. It is extremely intense for my current fitness level and I only have done it once a week or two. I am hoping once I get in better shape I can do more because I really love this workout.

30 Day Shred
I haven't started this one yet but plan to soon, maybe even tonight! I have done it in the past, but have never gone past the first level. Hopefully this time I stick with it!

With all these different types of workouts I am hoping my body won't get used to any one thing. I also plan to add it using the elliptical once in a while too.