Day 61--New Starts

I only have a week left on the 30 day challenge, and today I bought my supplies for the next step in my work-out journey. I have 8 pound hand weights. Play it Again Sports had metal weights at $0.79 per pound, instead of the $2 per pound for the neoprene ones at Target. I also bought the EA Active More Workouts but had to get it at Game Stop, because my regular Target no longer carries it. I am regular and proud Target shopper, but had to go elsewhere for two purchases because of their isolated suckiness on this. I have not done anything with the new purchases because of the Closing Ceremonies. I did work out this morning and did have a small weight gain, but I ate southern food with dessert for dinner last night and then had a few beers at a bare while seeing the Carolina Chocolate Drops. I was not too upset with the weight gain, since I was really expecting it to be a bit higher than it was. I think all of the toe-tapping helped burn off some of the calories from dinner. Also, I was too tired from driving from the show back into the city last night to be awake enough to really care. It was late, but I did get to view the city's skyline from a few angles and was reminded of how great the city I live in truly is. Tomorrow is back to work and back to a regular exercise and eating schedule.

Day 60--Laps

Today's work-out had me run 6 "laps" in one of the segments. That works out to about 5 minutes of continuous running. I managed to do the entire thing without any problems at all. I ran up and down my hallway checking into my progress on the game every few passes. I knew I was building up my running tolerance, but this still shocked me a bit. I don't think I've run that far at one time since high school PE classes. I think I'm going to buy the EA More Workout game today, so when my 30 day challenge ends in a week, I'll be ready to go on to that right away. I'm also going to buy 8 pound hand weights to improve the effectiveness of the upper-body workouts. I won't use them for every exercise, but I will use them for the bicep curls and some of the rows. It's been about 10 years since I've been a regular exerciser, and I'm really glad to be back there. Other than that stretch of time, and the few times that I've been overweight, I've been "skinny-fat" most of my adult life. I fit into small sizes, but haven't had any cardio ability or muscular strength. I am determined to stay out of that classification again.

Day 59--Dress Pants

Our office hosted the company's board meeting yesterday, so I thought I should wear something nicer than jeans. For the last few years, that has meant a skirt because I didn't have any dress pants that fit. I didn't want to wear a skirt yesterday because of the cold, the lack of pockets and the need to shave my legs. I decided to check if my dress pants with pockets fit me, and they did. On top of the coolness of being able to dress nicely for work without having to carry a purse, the pants are a size 8. How cool is that?? I didn't even need to squeeze into them, or hold my breath to button them.

I weighed in last night, and there was no change in my weight, but I didn't really care since I wore size 8 pants all day long.

Day 58--solution

This makes me wonder why I work out. I should just buy these instead.

Day 57--Better news

I lost a touch of weight since yesterday, but am still at the same weight I was over three weeks ago. I did my scheduled work out for the 30 Day challenge and then spend 45 minutes trying to find all the flags in Island Cycling. I couldn't find the last two, though. This is the third time I've tried to find all 20 flags and have not succeeded once. I've Tried to find information online about how to find the other flags, but to no avail. It's hard because there isn't a specific order for finding the flags, so the last flags on my path may be the first flags that someone else has found.

I feel a bit better about my work outs today than yesterday, though. I don't expect to lose weight every day, but I also don't want to gain weight every day, either. I'd like to see a gradual movement to a lower weight, and that doesn't really seem to be happening. I'll keep on keeping on and make sure to keep adding cardio to the daily workouts.

Day 56--Tuesday

Just another day of doing my daily workout. Just like yesterday, I gained a little bit of weight when I stepped on the scale. I honestly thought of making today's blog nothing but the word ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!! in really large letters. Now that I've already typed all this, I can't really go back to that original plan. I'll just keep on keeping on and hope that I see a change in my numbers soon before I get too frustrated.

Day 55--Nothing

Today was a really long day at work. I barely had enough energy to walk the two blocks from the train to get home. I weighed in, noticed my small weight gain, and then decided to take the night off. It was a rest day anyway. I will get back to it tomorrow with the next day's workout in EA Active.

Day 54--Measurements Take 3

I've been at this for 2 months. My first set of measurements were 12/20/2009. And, since my weight seems to be stuck, I thought I'd remeasure to see if that's been changing since the second set on 01/17/2010 I'm really hoping they've changed, because if my weight AND my measurements aren't moving, I'm going to feel really frustrated. Here goes....

Waist: 30 inches (I measured that twice to make sure I've really lost 2 inches. I have)
Hips: 38 inches (This hasn't moved in a month, which is ok, I guess.)

My waist to hip ratio is .789 I'm finally to the goal of .80 or lower for a low risk of heart disease.

I have 27% body fat. 35.9 Pounds of fat and 97.1Pounds of lean (muscle, bone, body water)

Upper chest: still 34
Under bust: 30.5
Thigh: 21 (same)
Calf: 13 (same)
Wrist: 6 (same)
Bicep: 11 (same)

Two months of work and I've managed to lose 3 1/2 pounds of fat and gain 1 pound of muscle. It's easier to monitor my weight and use that as a gauge of if my work is having any benefits, but it's clear that weight isn't the only way, or even the best way to monitor my progress.

I'm a little bit disappointed in the lack of change in the measurements. My weight isn't moving and that's not because I'm shifting from fat to muscle, which is what I was hoping for.

Day 53--Weekend

Last night was bowling. Our team went 7-0, and had one game where our team was 120 pins over our average. :)

I got a workout in first thing this morning and then had some high fiber (10 grams) oatmeal and my coffee. I'm finally back to my pre-Valentine's day weight. I don't think the week of higher weight was really due to anything I did or didn't do. I really need to get my base-line weight down so these little chemical weight gains don't push me so far up that I get as frustrated I did this week.

I was noticing how the progression in the 30 day challenge has the workouts set so each day's activity is either right at my level or just a bit above it. I think if I went back and did the 1st day at high intensity, I would not want to cry or give up on the day's activities, but I'm sure tomorrow will make me have both of those thoughts.

Day 52--Olympics

I managed to squeeze my workout in yesterday before heading out to watch the skating with friends. I then walked the .9 miles to my destination. I feel better for not having missed another day. I don't feel great about the lack of movement in my weight. I've been in the 132-134 range for weeks on end and really wish it would drop below 130. I'm sure that I could make this move if I were less lazy. I'm not lazy when it comes to getting my work out done, but I am lazy when it comes to other things. 1.) Tracking my calorie intake. I try to eat well, but I don't track what I eat to make sure I'm taking in the right amount of calories to help me lose weight. 2.) Water. I still don't drink enough water, which is probably hurting my weight loss efforts. It's not that I don't like the taste of water, it's just that I'm never really thirsty. 3.) Cardio/Aerobic exercise. I think I need to start adding in some exercise like free step, free run or Gold's Gym boxing after the EA Active work outs.

Day 51--nothing

I was stuck at work late yesterday, so I didn't get to work out. I really missed it. I'm not sure if I'll get to work out tonight, either, which would push my next work out to Saturday. I've gotten to the point where working out is part of my schedule and if it gets bumped, it gets missed. I did have time to weigh in, and nothing changed since Tuesday. I did some sit-ups during the downhill skiing, but that was not enough to make up for missing the full 30 minute work out.

Day 50--correction

It's not the island cycling that's making my calves moo. It's running in place. I tend to only run with the front of my foot, and the increase in running caused my calves to tighten up. I used my whole hallway to run on EA Active today, so I think I can avoid the calf pain in the future. I enjoyed the running more when I was moving, too. It felt a lot more natural than running in place. I was shocked that running up & down the hallway didn't cause my dogs to chase me, though. They were helping me with my side lunges and other exercises earlier in my workout. They are not the kind of personal trainers who anyone would want to hire or to help them with a workout.

I have had my weight get stuck a couple of pounds heavier than it was last Friday. A friend of mine who uses Wii Fit wishes that when it asked about reasons for a weight gain, that it offered "I'm a girl" as an answer. I have to agree. I know I wasn't good on Saturday, but I wasn't 7000 calories bad. That's how bad I would have had to have been for that to be the reason for a 2 pound weight gain. The only other reason would be my that every time I weigh myself, my dogs are secretly pushing on the balance board with their paws. I find that unlikely, so I'm blaming chemicals that I can't control.

Day 49--Confusion

I know that real exercise can be achieved with the Wii, yet I'm surprised when using the Wii leads to next day soreness. My guilt over the food on Saturday, led to extra cardio on Sunday. I did my regular workout as part of the 30 day challenge, then did the Wii Fit Island Cycling on Advanced. I gave up after finding 18 of 20 flags. That's better than last time when I gave up after 15, but I would really like to find them all. It took me about 47 minutes to find as many as I did, and I'm feeling it today. To "pedal" the bike, you step up and down. I don't move my whole foot to do this, though. I just move my heels up & down. That works out to 47 minutes of calf raises. My calves are mooing today. I also did 30 minutes of free step last night, but that is not where the soreness and stiffness are coming from. I'm hoping that the extra work did something for my weight in addition to the calf pain.

Day 48--Valentine's Day

Yesterday was a day of badness. I ate lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings, ate chocolate at the movies and then had dinner at a Korean restaurant. Not only did I notice the difference on the scale, I notice it in how I feel. I feel lethargic from over-eating. Korean restaurants really load you up with food. I even joked that the woman who was serving us and was also the owner seemed to be fattening us up to eat us. There were the 8 little plates of various things: kim chee, daikon radish, bean sprouts, seitan, zucchini and other things that weren't as easily named. There were also the fish that were still looking at us and the egg pancake thing. None of these were actually ordered, but were included in our order of other food. I know most of it was fairly healthy, but it was still a lot of food. I will be eating my left overs for dinner tonight and already had some for lunch. This photo is pretty close to what our table looked like last night. It was all very, very yummy, though. I did more cardio today to make up for it and will get back into a pattern of good behavior during the week.

Day 47--back at it

Thursday was a scheduled rest day and yesterday was bowling. (We went 6-1, and probably stayed tied for first place.) I started right back at it this morning, though. It turns out that I miss working out on the days when I can't get to it. Bowling may qualify as a sport, but it's not much of a workout. I did better at the fast kick-ups today. I had to run 2 "laps" of them, and that's way more than I can normally manage. If I'm just running, I can do 2 "laps" in about 90 seconds. It takes me much longer to finish them when I'm doing kick-ups. Part of that time is because I have to do slow kick-ups for at least half of the distance. Today, I managed to do the full distance at full speed. I was really winded after it, but I still managed to finish that and keep going with the rest of the work out. I may not be seeing a dramatic change in my total weight (I'm down to 131.2 pounds), or even my appearance, but I know that I'm getting stronger and building up my cardio limits. I really need to look into testing my heart rate and aerobic capacity so I can see the actual levels of improvement.

Day 46--Running

I enjoy running. I haven't enjoyed running in my entire life. It's the part of the daily workout in the 30 day challenge that I most look forward to. I still don't like fast kick ups, but the actual running is enjoyable. I may see if my enjoyment of running translates from running in place in my living room to running on a treadmill. Last summer, when I was biking to work, I kept trying to run on the treadmill, but after a couple of minutes I would die. I've run on the Wii for much longer than that, and haven't felt that urge to die that I normally get when I run. I don't have any plans for running a marathon any time soon, but this is still a nice change which opens more work out opportunities for me. If it does translate outside of my living room, it may also benefit my dogs, who have never been able to run because there was no one who could run with them for more than a few steps.

Day 45--Stuckedness

I know that's not a word, but that's how I feel. I'm over a week into the high intensity 30 day challenge and my weight has not budged at all. I'm still just a glass of water under 132 pounds. My diet is still pretty good and even the Super Bowl night wasn't much of a departure. I think I had 2, maybe 3, beers that entire night. I'm not thinking of throwing in the towel, but I am frustrated. I'm not sure if I need to add some non-Wii activity, or if I need to start doing some free-step. It's the one thing I can do on the Wii the entire night after dinner without hogging the entire living room for myself. I can do start the free step, switch antennas on the TV and then switch back when the pre-set time is over. Wii also switches the sound to the controller so you can still keep their rhythm, if you choose to do that. When I used free step last summer, I usually was stepping much faster than the fastest rhythm that is available on the game. While looking for an image for the Free step, I found one for Free run. I had no idea that was an option. I'll have to look into that tomorrow when I weigh in.

Day 44--Holiday Hangover

Today should be a National Holiday. We should just move Presidents' Day to the first Monday after the first Sunday of February. That would be the day after the Super Bowl so we can all eat & drink all we want, stay at our friends' houses after the game is over, have time to clean up and then not have to worry about getting up early the next morning to get to work. One million people watched the game last night and I'm sure they'd all agree with me on this. Especially since most of us don't really celebrate Presidents' Day anyway.

Other than that, today is a day to celebrate only gaining .2 pounds from the gluttony that is Super Bowl Sunday. I probably could be celebrating no change in my weight, but I didn't feel like making the effort of peeing before my weigh in. My cat, on the other hand, could do with a kitty treadmill. I used the Wii to weigh her in, and she's pushing 20 pounds. For now, I'm rationalizing it as that she's part Maine Coon. (It's sort of the cat equivalent of being big boned."

Day 43---Super Bowl

The head count for our party today is hovering around a dozen, so this weekend has involved a lot of prep work. (Kept typing prep as perp. That's not what I was doing today.) Even with all the prep work of cleaning, cooking, rearranging furniture to fit everyone with a decent view of the TV and fending off the puppies, I still managed to get my EA Active work-out in today. My weight is still right at 132 pounds, where it feels like it's stuck. I'm waiting for the point in this 30 day challenge when the upper body exercises with the 5 pound weights don't make me want to cry. I'm not anywhere near that point yet. I am weirdly at a point where I look forward to the running, though. I need to take that unexpected enjoyment of running and try the Wii Fit running, which I've never done. All of that exercise, plus the exercise of scrubbing the kitchen floors should give me enough of a calorie burn to off-set all the crap I'm prepared to eat and drink the rest of the day. Now, on to the game. Go Saints!!!

Day 42--Weight

I didn't work out yesterday because of bowling. I really didn't feel like 30 minutes of really hard exercise at 10 when I got home. I did weigh in last night and found that I had gained .4 pounds because of the pizza. I even had leftover pizza for lunch on Friday, so I thought that I'd see the results of this diet transgression on the scale, but I didn't. I weigh less today than I did on Thursday before the pizza. This gives me hope for tomorrow. In case you're not a football fan, tomorrow is the Super Bowl. It's the biggest party day of the year, even for people who don't like football. Close to 100 million people watch the game every year. Most of us eat chips, dip, fried foods and other unhealthy things during the 4+ hours of activity. I don't plan on being saintly tomorrow, but now I know I can eat more than is ideal without needing to feel any guilt. I'm glad for that, because my brother is recreating the food stadium in the photo. He will be making some changes, and I will post a photo or two of his version Monday.

Day 41--Domino's

I had Domino's for dinner. Turns out that the new improved taste is improved. Before I ate bad food, I weighed in at a little bit under 132 pounds. I know my weight fluctuates about 1/2 pound a day and it's good to know that the mid point in that fluctuation is 132 pounds now, and not the 134-135 that it was at the beginning of the year. Today's workout wasn't too difficult, which I appreciated. I wasn't really feeling up to a hard work out. I did do a lot of bicep curls though. Now I just need to convince everyone that they should admire by big, bulging biceps. No, they're no as big as this guy's. This guy was a huge steroid user who had the largest biceps in the world at one time. I watched an entire show about this guy on The Discovery Channel one Saturday.

Day 40--Rest

I was really hoping for some weight loss today, but no such luck. I didn't gain much, but I can barely wait until my weight gets below 130. I understand when the Biggest Loser people are so excited to cross a plateau. I guess I should consider myself lucky that my plateau is already in a healthy range and not 300 or 400 pounds. This isn't the first time in my adult life that my weight has gotten too high for my comfort level. This is probably the fourth time that I've gone over 140, and some of those times it's gone over 150. I'm really hoping that this is the last time that I ever have to work to get it back below 130. As I've gotten older, the work needed to get below that mark has increased at a level that seems to be exponentially related to my age. The first time it happened, I was 21 years old and all it took was a slight tweak to my eating habits. It wasn't anything that could be called a diet, because it wasn't that big of a change. This time around it's been a year of changes to my eating habits and a ton more exercise and I'm still not there. This should be my motivation to keep it low once I finally get it down where it belongs.

Day 39--New goals

I wasn't sore today at all. I was surprised about that after the pain that I was in yesterday while doing the first workout on high intensity. Working out is now getting to be a part of my daily routine and I'm actually enjoying the workout itself, and not just the results. Not that the results aren't great. I keep noticing the tightness/firmness of my muscles throughout the day, even when I'm not flexing. Today, I was taken aback by the way my arm feels, which I notcied while pushing up my shirt sleeves. I can also feel my legs getting firmer overall, even when I'm not flexing.

Now that I'm seeing the first steps in my quest to achieve a perfect body, I've set some more specific goals. I was inspired by watching NBC tonight. They had a commercial for the Olympics, and skier Lindsey Von was featured in it. There was quick shot of her in a skier's squat, but balancing on top of a yoga ball. I found an entire video of her working out, which blew my mind. That, and a story of golfer Anika Sorenstam practicing her drives from the top of a yoga ball have motivated me to be able to match their ability to balance.

Day 38--Starting Over

Today, I began a new 30 Day Challenge. This time, I'm doing it on high intensity, rather than the low intensity of the challenge I just finished. I've been under the assumption that the levels were called low, medium and hard, but turns out that wasn't correct. It's really low, medium and high intensity. Today's workout was just about 30 minutes, instead of the14 minute workouts of the low intensity. I definitely broke a sweat and was winded several times during the workout. Three minutes of full-speed running with high kicks will do that to you. I also moved from 3-pound weights to 5-pound weights. I can already tell that I'm going to feel that difference in my triceps and my anterior deltoids. Those front shoulder raises made me want to cry. On a good note, my weight before working out was under 132 pounds. I didn't weigh in after working out, because I ran out of time and was exhausted. I'm really hoping that one week of working out on high intensity will help me cross the 130 mark once and for all.