One Tiny Step

9/15/15 165.2lbs and 37.7%bf

9/22/15 164lbs and 37.1%bf

9/29/15 162.9lbs and 36.5%bf

10/6/15 162.1lbs and 36.3%bf

10/13/15 163.1lbs and 35.9%bf

10/20/15 161.4lbs and 35.8%bf

10/27/15 161.2lbs and 35.8%bf

11/04/15 160.9lbs and 36.4%bf

11/07/15 1589.9lbs and 37.2%bf *

(lookie! exaclty 10 less than my weigh IN!)

Painfully obvious when I stopped lifting weights isn't it? The weight continued the downward trend but the body fat percentage started to climb back up.

All in all the 90 day challenge was a great experience that really kept me accountable but the bad news is that since it finished right before Thanksgiving I've let my fitness regime slip... big time. The weight has crept back up. Me and the kids all took turns being sick through most of December so the gym was pretty much off limits. I pulled a back muscle last week and it's taken a week to just feel almost normal again. (Did I pull that muscle being awesome in the gym you ask? Alas no. I twisted exactly the wrong way picking my toddler up at story time!!)

New challenge starts Feb 4th and it looks like I may have convinced Mark to do it with me this time....!!!!

The Tree!

2015-12-02T09:24:00.000-05:00

I think we've stumbled into a new tradition!

Nobody (except maybe my mom) was super keen on my idea to film the family decorating the tree but I was insistent. I thought it would be cute. I think I was right. ;)

Mark totally got on board when I started editing though. No way I could have made the music half as seamless as he managed.

Honestly? It's actually much funnier to watch than we thought it would be. Tip: if you want to laugh just keep your eyes on Gabriel.

We'd intended to decorate with my parents but wound up getting the tree a day late and then had to let it drop a bit before we could decorate and by that time they were headed home.

The confusion doesn't come across in the video (which is a good thing!) but we are missing an entire box of tree decorations. Looks like it's back into the attic I go. Oh and turns out the star was completely out of frame. oops. I wish I could have uploaded the movie in full resolution but that would have been a 3gig beast so the internets will just have to make do with the lower quality. I'm so looking forward to doing this every year now!

Weekly Weigh In 9,10,11, and 12!

2015-10-28T15:39:00.000-04:00

Oh gosh... how behind am I? I don't even have an idea. I'm going to have to go back and look at my last post to work it out.

After finishing NROLFW stage 1 my dedication completely fell apart. Instead being able to knock out a workout in 35 minutes, stage two was taking me almost and hour and a half. I do not have that kind of time to devote to the gym 3 days a week. Add in visiting grandparents and I can honestly say I've only made it to the gym once a week recently (and that was for yoga!) I did make it to LifeBarre last night so I feel like I'm on my way to getting back in the groove but we'll see.

I only have 11 days before my final weigh out. Ideally I'd like to see that scale tip below 160 (it's been YEARS people.) I know it's just a number and if I start lifting properly for the next 2 weeks I know the scale might actually go up but it would be lovely to see. I'm going to try to really recommit myself for this final push.

Okay time for the numbers... (looks like the last weigh in was the 12th)

Stats

9/15/15 165.2lbs and 37.7%bf

9/22/15 164lbs and 37.1%bf

9/29/15 162.9lbs and 36.5%bf

10/6/15 162.1lbs and 36.3%bf
10/13/15 163.1lbs and 35.9%bf
10/20/15 161.4lbs and 35.8%bf
10/27/15 161.2lbs and 35.8%bf

and here it is in a pretty graphical representation

whoo! It's not a lot but it's progress.

Weekly Weigh In 8

2015-09-30T16:11:00.000-04:00

Despite celebrating a belated birthday weekend for my Mom in NoVa this weekend, I still managed to come away from the weigh in with good news! (Take that Cheesecake Factory!)

Stats

9/15/15 165.2lbs and 37.7%bf

9/22/15 164lbs and 37.1%bf

9/29/15 162.9lbs and 36.5%bf

I have officially lost 5lbs LOL!! Slow but steady right people? I'll get there... eventually!

Stage 1 - Workout B recap

2015-09-30T13:46:00.001-04:00

Call me absent minded. I totally forgot to come back and post Stage 1 - Workout B's recap!

However, it's not like I'm saying goodbye to any of these moves, stage 2 just modifies them a bit. Lunges and deadlifts will be elevated, wide grip lat pulls switch to an underhanded grip, shoulder presses become Cuban dumbbell snatches.. planks and pushups will remain as is (just hopefully with better form!) Wish me luck folks! I made it through Stage 2 Workout A this week already but tomorrow will be my first go at S2B1! (stage 2, workout 1 of B)

ps. Can I just add how totally impressed I am with myself after figuring out to embed that pdf file into the blog all by myself? Whoo!

Weekly Weigh In 7

2015-09-28T10:01:00.002-04:00

Stats

9/15/15 165.2lbs and 37.7%bf
9/22/15 164lbs and 37.1%bf

Weekly Weigh In 6

2015-09-22T09:36:00.003-04:00

You know when I drag my feet on the update this long that the news isn't good. It didn't go up much so I guess things could be worse. On the bright side, in the past week 4 different people have commented on how much weight I look like I've lost. Haven't the heart to tell them it's only 3lbs..... oi. We're halfway through and I still have so far to go. I'm so conflicted. Do I stay with the weights, which I enjoy and can see progress with or do I focus on my diet/cardio and try to drop some of this weight faster than lifting will do?

Stats

8/8/15 168.9lbs and 40.1% bf
8/18/15 167.4lbs and 37.9% bf

9/15/15 165.2lbs and 37.7%bf

Stage 1 - Workout A

2015-09-16T16:29:00.001-04:00

I did my last NROLFW "A" workout this morning! (Technically I have one more workout but that's just going back to my beginning weights and seeing how many reps I can crank out. Perhaps I'll update later. Right now I'm just excited that I've completed something!) Friday morning will be the last B workout, but for now, here's Stage 1:Workout A in it's entirety.

I'm kinda impressed with the weights I was able to get up to, (disregarding the seated cable row because that beast refused to get any easier once I got to 85lbs!) My elbows still flare out a bit too much on the pushups and I'm definitely not getting as low as I should but I'm still proud of the ones I can do.

A Meal Planned Week.

2015-09-14T17:50:00.000-04:00

After lamenting on facebook my inability to force myself to create a meal plan, my friends came to the rescue with multiple suggestions, commiserations and tips. Instead of nodding at their helpful advice and then promptly forgetting it 2 hours later [what you think I've done that before? Surely not.] I decided to commit to a week of planned meals, and we all know that I'm way better at sticking to something if I tell people I'm doing it first. Sometimes harnessing the power of peer pressure is a good thing.

However I'm not doing a week. I'm doing 5 days. A "work week" if you will. (Though that doesn't actually exist when you have kids. Enjoy sleeping in you yuppies!) I'm also not doing breakfast and lunch yet because I'm a completely newbie and we're taking baby steps here people.

[I'm going to write this as the week progresses so maybe you can have recipes and pictures as well but that also means I'll probably be all over the place with my tenses. Prepare yourselves for past, present and future all mingling about in the same paragraph! ]

Here's the plan.

Monday Night
~~Skinny Quiche (I've already misplaced the website I adapted it from.)~~
Whoops. Mark's tires were all low this morning, turns out he needed four new ones. The evening was a complete mess. We got a pizza to go from Mellow Mushroom. Off to a great start... 0_o

Tuesday Night
This needs to be a crockpot meal because JBear has swim lessons until 6:15 and it will easily be 7 by the time we get home. It also needs to be something I know both kids will eat because they'll be starving by the time we get home.

I did it! Pork chops in the crockpot with raw green beans. (No time to cook side dishes, hahaha) They were delish, but both kids chose to eat their leftovers from the weekend instead. Ie, hamburger and chicken fingers. Whoo, healthy.

Wednesday Night
Gymnastics until 6:45 not home until 7:30. I need something she can eat before we leave but then have 'second dinner' from when she gets home and is hungry all over again. ~~Another crockpot meal.~~

Oops. Forgot to plan crockpot meal. Turned into last minute stop at grocery store on the way home to buy mince and hamburger helper. Yeah. You can see why I need to try harder at this whole "planning" thing. At least I served it with an organic salad!

Thursday Night
We'll all be home, so I'm choosing something that will be fun to pull together as a family.
Imitation PFchang's Chicken Wraps. (Hmmm.. I'm looking at this currently - Thursday morning. I think not. I have some italian chicken destined for the grill tonight. Let's see how this pans out...)
Hamburgers!

Hahaha In my defense I did cook the chicken to have on salads for the next few days.

And doesn't this salad look yummy???

Friday Night
I'm trying to resist writing the words 'Pizza Movie Night' with every fiber of my being... I sooo want to write 'Pizza Movie Night.'

Impromptu dinner with friends! A friend I haven't seen in 15 years and thus have not met husband or children of! I made steak pie, puff pastry and roast potatoes. They brought apple pie. Heaven help me but I refused to count calories and just enjoyed the company!

In short I'm going to call this "meal plan" a complete fail. LOL I must try harder next time.

Weekly Weigh In 5

2015-09-14T16:51:00.003-04:00

Erg. I think I forgot to post last week. Brain is in total mush state at the moment. Kids are playing with both water beads AND kinetic sand simultaneously. This cannot end will. We'd started out optimistically cleaning out the craft cupboard but that just lead to the desire to play with everything.

I managed to get my workout in this morning, which is a good thing because after my first chiropractic adjustment in years this afternoon, I'm feeling a serious amount of... shall we say, discomfort? More on my wonky spine later.

Stats

8/8/15 168.9lbs and 40.1% bf
8/18/15 167.4lbs and 37.9% bf

9/8/15 164lbs and 36.9%bf

We finally have a downward trend!

Prospects are not good for tomorrow. I went to two kids birthday parties this weekend and both involved pizza and cake (which is as we all know, are the BEST birthday foods.) I managed to practice some restraint but come on people. Pizza. My workouts have also slowed to an average of one lifting routine every two days rather than every other day with one 2 day rest in the week. Tomorrows' Try It Tuesday is Pilates! I've been doing yoga since I started at this gym but pilates is a private class costing extra so I've not been to one. Should be interesting.

Weekly Weigh In 4

2015-09-03T10:01:00.001-04:00

Oh gosh. I can't even remember what I did last week. I had 5 sentences written but couldn't for the life of me fill in the blank spots so I'm just going to skip over this week's exercises and jump straight to the weekly weigh in. I was at the gym loads I promise. I was more tired and over scheduled though so I think I averaged more like 2 days between each lifting session but I still got them done.

I'd signed up for the Try It Tuesday class but when I realized it was just in introduction to dumbbells and would add a considerable amount of 'getting to the gym on time' stress into my life I decided to cancel my reservation and just do some cardio and stretching. (That's another reason I've been adding some rest days this week - my left hip is achey. I'm not sure why and it doesn't feel like my normal tight hip flexors, so I'm trying to go easy on it till I see the chiropractor next week.)

Good news this week. The numbers on the scale actually went down!