WIR ~ Let's Get Fit 2014

[chiver78]

January Progress!

I started a "biggest loser" challenge with some girlfriends of mine - winner is determined by % - on 1/2, but had already started following a mostly (at that point) Paleo diet on 12/26 as I finished off some holiday leftovers. I went 100% Paleo when the challenge started. I also started skiing again. I've been twice so far, and am planning to go somewhere local tomorrow. also still playing hockey.

from 12/26, I steadily lost about 12lbs thru 1/18 and found myself in the ER with massive BP spikes the night of 1/18. Following up w/my dr on 1/20, I immediately stopped the Paleo plan and proceeded to take the week off from ALL physical activities while we let my system restabilize itself. over that work week, I maintained at the 12lbs lost mark. over that weekend, I gained back about 2lbs from caving to comfort food cravings - reporting at the mid-challenge check in with an 8lb loss for the challenge period. I'm currently in 2nd place

where I stand right now - I am making healthy food choices and staying within my calories most days. a couple days I have gone over, but still within spitting distance of where I should be. I have kept a couple tasty Paleo recipes for my collection, but I am no longer following that diet plan. I haven't played hockey since the night in the ER, and there are no games tomorrow due to the Super Bowl. I had gotten back down to the 12lbs lost mark this week, until I went out to a concert last night and let myself have a couple light beers (staying within calories...). was rewarded this AM with 3 extra lbs. so I am hovering around the 200lb mark.

getting my hair done today took way longer than I expected, I just had a snack of a half tuna salad sandwich to calm the starving beast for a little while lol..... MFP says that including that snack, I've only consumed about 450 calories today - not ideal. between that very low amount and knowing I'm skiing tomorrow, dinner tonight's going to be my spinach-loaded macaroni and cheese - 330 cal/serving (made lighter by using mostly chicken broth instead of milk in the base ) and I will add a small salad to fill out the meal.

I'm looking forward to continuing my progress in Feb. keep up the great work, ladies!

[sarcasticgirl]

Acemom- no, I didn't add a final weigh in. I mean... If you don't meet goal it doesn't matter, and I didn't meet goal. I am stepping away from the scale for a few days. Thank god I am so sick of that thing.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using proboards

[mizbear]

I haven't been very motivated to look at the scale. Stupid as this sounds, I think I will weigh in before my surgery, after I can start eating solid food again, and go from there...

I know that's cheating to a point, but I just keep looking at the scale and going "meh"

I think it irritates me that my mother does nothing, eats like crap and loses weight. Then when she does gain weight complains and has to find something to blame it on. I can eat almost anything I want and lose as long as I am moving around

[sarcasticgirl]

Got home at 11:30 and still needed 2000 steps to hit 10k. So tired, and maybe a little drunk. I got my steps in! Yay!

Sent from my Nexus 4 using proboards

[MarionTh230]

Sunday update time for me.

Recap
Lose 35 lbs in 2014 and create a bunch of new healthy habits that will stick.
I met all 3 of my Week 4 goals:  walk the dogs twice, yoga twice for 15 minutes each, and wear the pedometer everyday.

Now, I hate the pedometer.  I have a couple of cheap ones so I used the smaller one.  Both of them are the ones that makes the clickety click sound every time you take a step.  The racket drove me crazy.  And, I'm not sure how accurate it is.  I put it on when I leave the house on my way to work.  For the two days I worked this week it pegged me at 7,000 - 8,000 steps by the time I got home.  Now, I do walk a whole bunch at work (truth be told that's probably the only reason my weight hasn't ballooned up over the past couple of years).  But that still sounds high.     I'm going to shelve the pedometer for this month.  I still think it will help me, but I want to use some of the suggestions here and buy a new one.  I really liked the fitbit, but I'm also doing WIR Racers so I need to put some more thought into which new pedometer I really want to spend money on.  My plan is to revisit the pedometer in March.  In the meantime, I'm still going to use that 3 steps forward 3 steps back trick while I'm watching tv.  It's been a great way for me to keep my but off the couch!

Week 5 Goals

• Find a coffee creamer substitute.
• Basic yoga stretches for 15 minutes a day, two days a week.
• Jump rope 3 times this week.

I use powdered creamer with a shot of milk (to cool it down) in my coffee.  Plain creamer isn't too bad but I really like flavored (amaretto and hazelnut), which adds a lot of empty calories.  I track the coffee/creamer intake on MyPlate and it's pretty obvious I need to change something.  Since I like amaretto the most, I got some almond milk at the grocery yesterday.  It's a bit too watery so I've been trying to get some combination of plain powdered creamer & almond milk that I like.  Have a couple of other ideas too if this first pass doesn't work.

The yoga helped loosen me up last week.  If I can meet this goal again this week I'm going to call it a habit and just do it from here on out.  

I like to watch boxing and a few months ago (before I got serious about my personal fitness) I found a workout I wanted to try that is based off of boxing training.  It has 6 different exercises.  The idea is you do exercise 1 for two minutes, rest for 30 seconds, do exercise 2 for two minutes, rest for 30 seconds, and continue on through exercise 6.
I tried it, but I couldn't do half of the exercises in the routine so I just gave up.  I'm going to approach it differently this time.  Exercise 1 is jumping rope for 2 minutes.  So this week, I am going to do 5 reps with each rep being 2 minutes of jumping with 30 seconds of rest.  Once I have that nailed down I will work on exercise 2 next week.  Then the week after that I can work on combining the two.  Then I can learn exercise 3, then combine, etc all the way until I can do the entire work out.  

I'm still doing those reverse crunches I was learning this past week too.  I just didn't want to add it as a goal for the week and overwhelm myself.  I will do them throughout the week but I won't hold myself to any certain number of times.

Numbers Update

Start	1/1/14	209.0
Last	1/26/14	202.8
Current	2/2/14	200.6

I've lost another 2.2 lbs this week for a total of 8.4. I'm excited about getting below the 200.0 mark.  I can't remember the last time I was.  If I can focus on more physical activity this month, I should be in good shape going into March.  Watching my calories is great, but I really need to get some real activity into my routine.  

New Habits

• Tracking daily calorie intake & regularly meeting calorie goal
• Walking the dogs twice a week
• Eating dinner at the table each night

For me, eating at the table isn't about that whole eat slow savor your food thing.  Since it's just me, I had a bad habit of eating at the coffee table in front of the tv with my butt on the couch.  Eating at the table is just another way for my butt to avoid the couch and it seems to be really helping.

Marion's Ramblings
The January updates have been so great to read.  So much has happened and we have all learned so much.  It's kind of exciting 

I had an irritation yesterday.  I was out doing my grocery shopping.  One thing I wanted was some different proteins.  Grocery store advertised "new" Butterball turkey chops.  I'm at the case and they have 3 kinds.  One plain and two different marinaded ones.  I check the labels and the marinaded ones are out because of the darn sodium.  Problem is, the plain wasn't much better.  They inject it with a salt/vinegar solution to make them tasty.     I bought them anyways because other than ground turkey the only other poultry I eat regularly is chicken.  At least I read the label first though.  I will have to eat those on a day I don't eat soup for lunch or on a day I don't have cheese and crackers as a snack.  They really do sneak sodium into the most unsuspecting places.  

kilroy - no advice for you, just 

chiver - what are the proportions of ingredients for your spinach mac and cheese?  It sounds good, but I never would have thought to make mac and cheese with spinach.  Just wondering how the broth and cheese balance out the spinach and pasta by using less milk.  It sounds like a great dish.

sarcastic -    I'm really glad you had a great time last night!  You had a rough week.  And at least now you don't have to be chained to that stupid scale.

acemom - how did your diet bet go?

Also interested in hearing and update from bsbound when she checks back in after the weekend.  She is so close to that   vacation that the suspense is killing me!

It's the beginning of February so let's see what we can do this month ladies!

[sarcasticgirl]

LOWER BODY CHALLENGE:
I am starting with a low count- adjust as you see fit. I've included links for an example if you aren't familiar with the workout.
The challenge is to do these 3 times a week. Tuesday, Thursday and either Saturday or Sunday (adjust for your schedule)

15 squats
15 bridge march sunina.com/glute-bridge-march/
15 bent knee hip extensions health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/diet-fitness/exercise/leg-exercises10.htm
15 side leg raises www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/side-leg-raise#.
15 lunges each leg

[sarcasticgirl]

UPPER BODY CHALLENGE:
So, I really wanted to come up with a body weight challenge for the upper body, but yeah, that is super hard. So the challenge involves hand weights. If you don't have any, they are pretty cheap (a couple bucks each) and I would start with 3-5 pounds.
If you aren't interesting in purchasing any, I would recommend, Push ups, arm circles and punches (jabs, upper cuts, hooks) or if you are really feeling determined, you can do both these and the weighted moves below! 

15 Bicep curls www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/biceps-curl-1

15 Hammer curls www.thedailybalance.com/2012/01/18/my-favorite-arm-workout-in-30-minutes-or-less/hammer-curl/

15 Triceps Press www.thedailybalance.com/2012/01/18/my-favorite-arm-workout-in-30-minutes-or-less/dumbbell-triceps-press/ 

15 Shoulder Press www.thedailybalance.com/2012/01/18/my-favorite-arm-workout-in-30-minutes-or-less/shoulder-press/

15 Kick backs www.thedailybalance.com/2012/01/18/my-favorite-arm-workout-in-30-minutes-or-less/kickback/

[kilroy]

MarionTh230 - thanks for the hug, I needed that.

My life is getting complicated; I have federal grand jury duty starting Monday & I don't know yet what the time commitment will be, then I have a job interview on Tuesday (fingers crossed).  I should try not to stress until I find out what the deal is with jury duty, but I'm good at stressing

[mizbear]

If you own a sturdy bench, you can also do tricep dips.

Setting lots of goals today.

Still staying with my original weight loss goal, but I am not going to my reunion. I have no real desire to be there and being on the committee has just further reinforced the concept that I don't belong. I don't want to be around those people. I want to be around people who value me for who I am.

[sarcasticgirl]

Just an FYI- I just did the Core/Upper/Lower Challenge. I did warm up with arm circles and hit circles and windmills, added in all the punches and did some cool down stretches and it took about 20 minutes total. Head to toe in 20 minutes. Not bad!

[mizbear]

Awesome! Because my workout time is part of my me time sometimes I often prefer to workout for at least an hour.

[acemom]

Sarcastic, I'm sorry your diet bet didn't end the way you had hoped.  Thank you for joining with me though.  Maybe we can do another one some day!  I know what you mean about being tired of the scale.  I didn't realize how much I worried about it until this challenge.

I'm looking forward to starting the upper/lower challenge.  Are you all still going to do the core challenge as well or just do core separate?  

I used a gift card that I got for my birthday to buy a fitbit.  Yesterday I got it set up and then we watched two movies after dinner, so I didn't get many steps in.  I've only gotten 1660 steps in today but all I've really done is cook, clean and do laundry.  I've got a bf with the flu and ds playing on his kindle.  His dad is coming to pick him up for a super bowl party...

I made the weigh in for the diet bet.  I weighed in yesterday at 180.0 - I needed to reach 180.3, so I barely squeaked by.  I'm still waiting for my weigh in to be verified though.  

Chiver, I'd like to know more about your spinach Mac and cheese too!  Sounds yummy.  

Mizbear, I hope everything goes well with your surgery...  sounds complicated and extensive.  

Kilroy, jury duty does not sound fun...  good luck on your interview!  Sending you positive juju!!

Happy February friends!  

[chiver78]

checking in quickly to explain my spinach mac

boil off 1lb of a curly pasta. I used campanelle last night.
first I make a roux w/2 or 3 T of butter/flour. let that cook for a little bit, then whisk in a cup and a half of homemade chicken stock and about half a cup of 2% milk. let that cook a few minutes, add a pinch of nutmeg.
whisk in about 2 cups of grated parmesan cheese (I like grana padano, it's a drier more aged parmesan) and let it melt in. lower the heat and let the sauce thicken.
as the sauce is thickening, mix in a 10oz box of frozen spinach that you've thawed and wrung dry.
just before you drain the pasta, grab about a cup of the starchy water in case the sauce needs to be thinned out a little when you pour it over the pasta.

drain pasta, stir in the sauce and enjoy

[sarcasticgirl]

Acemom- yay for winning your diet bet! I am interested to see what the winnings are!
I am still doing the core challenge that bsbound posts. I'll do that daily... Upper and lower 3 times a week.
Also, if you want to be fitbit friends let me know. It is great motivation. I finally passed ners... Buy I am sure she'll be back to kicking my butt soon lol

Sent from my Nexus 4 using proboards

[mizbear]

ace- It's more complicated than originally thought but more painful than anything. And kind of gorey to explain.

[MarionTh230]

I finished cleaning out my spare room today.  I normally do my yoga & crunches in the living room, but I have one  that thinks it should be a team sport.  As much as I love him, I could do without the sloppy dog kisses in the middle of my yoga   so I'm moving that activity into the spare room from here on out.

chiver - thanks for the recipe!  I have some tricolor vegetable rotini that I think I'll try it with.  Will grab some frozen spinach at the grocery next weekend.  And I forgot to ask, how long does your challenge go with your girlfriends?

sarcastic - I'm not going to join the upper/lower challenge but thanks so much for posting the links.  I will be learning some of the exercises as you all do the challenge.  That way when it's time for me to add more exercise in my routine, I'll have some tricks in my back pocket 

acemom - congrats on making the bet 

mizbear - I am all for not being bothered with people that bring no value to your life

kilroy - don't let the stress get you down, it will pass (eventually)   and I'm with acemom, sending boat loads of good thoughts and juju your way!

Did two loads of towels - second is in the dryer now.  Finished cleaning and putting away all the dishes.  Prepped and portioned out all the snacks I brought home from the grocery yesterday.  Loose meal plan is made (I like to give myself some flexibility in case my mood on any given day doesn't agree with the plan).  About to soak in a hot tub and then finish making dinner.  Should be able to have the dinner dishes cleaned and put away before the game starts.

After that, I am cognizantly choosing to keep my butt on the couch for the rest of the evening to watch the ball game.  I will fold and put away both loads of towels during the game and then I will give myself a mani and a pedi while it's on.  My planned dinner still leaves me 325 calories below my goal for today, so, I have some wiggle room to sneak in some snacks or wine while the game is on (as long as my nails are dry and I don't ruin my manicure!)

[chiver78]

Marion - the challenge goes til just before most of us leave on our cruise - 2/21. hope you like the spinach mac

[mizbear]

Pasta sounds awesome chiver- and I happen to be a spinach nut!

I grilled chicken on the grill tonight, made my own seasoning mix- little bit of this and that... I know I bit garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, herbes de provence, poultry seasoning, smoked paprika and some other stuff in it- but I don't remember what

[Pants]

Hey guys - checking in after another lazy, not-good-willpower weekend. I have really seem to hit a wall with both diet and exercise. Now that I am so close it's getting really hard to stay motivated, which I know makes no sense but it is what it is. Managed to maintain over the weekend, but did zero workouts and went out to dinner Saturday, breakfast sunday and ordered pizza for the game last night. Not my best moments. We also had a rough day yesterday - had to take B to the ER because DH fell down the stairs with her and she couldn't walk. Of course, as soon as we get to the ER she is magically fine, but it was a weird scary morning.

It's really inspiring to read everyone's January wrap-ups! I am going to go back and dig up my weight from previous posts (unfortunately I accidentally erased all my progress in my tracking app while trying to set some new goals. Oops.) and update in a bit. Happy monday!

[Pants]

Ok, so January wrap-up.

January goals were: "15-20 lbs to lose before the end of Feb. Plan is: No alcohol. At all. Exercise 5x/week. Follow diet as have been, and track daily in LoseIt app."

Results:
Starting weight (approx): 190. Ending weight: 177. Down 13 lbs! DH and I have 4 lbs to lose, between the two of us, to win the caribbean trip.

I did keep to my 5x week workouts for the first 2.5 weeks, then stopped deliberately as I wasn't shedding pounds. I have only done 1 workout in the last ten days - not ideal, I need to get back on the bandwagon. I know once I start again I can keep it up, I've just fallen out of the habit right now. Damn inertia!

Have only had 2 drinks in that time - one at DH's company dinner and one on Saturday night. Think going from 5-10 drinks/week to 2 drinks/month is pretty impressive.

Didn't track calories daily, but tracked 20 days out of 31, not bad. I know many of the days I didn't track I still made my goal with ease. So I will say I probably stayed on track 24 out of 31 days? That's a guess though.

In updates on non-official goals:
Put on a brand new pair of size 12 pants today - and they are too big. They fit better than the size 14s I was wearing last week to fit over my fleece tights because of the weather, but are still too big. It's a nice feeling and I'm going to head down to the basement tonight to try on the rest of my size 12s that were too tight to come upstairs with the last round.

Feb goals: Resume swimming and brief cardio. Continue Core Challenge. Track calories. Lose enough weight to meet carribean goal. Once that happens, resume weights/circuit workouts. Fit into *some* of my size 10 clothes by end Feb.

AND, finally and very importantly: Clean out my closet of clothes that are too big (currently just in big pile on floor, oops), and sort appropriately: Alter, Keep/store in case of another pregnancy, and Donate!

Random musings
Hey, A HUGE THANK YOU to whoever thought this up this recap idea! I'm actually pretty inspired by the realization of what I accomplished in January! Ready to get back in that pool tonight and kick some ass! (My own!)

[acemom]

Diet Bet amount won is $32.49. At this point I am not going to do another bet. Maybe later.

I'm proud of myself for remembering to put my Fitbit on this morning! I have 1300 steps so far. I can't figure out how to add people, so if anyone wants to add me, I'm all for it! I have already noticed a difference in my mentality to try to walk more to get steps in. My goal is to get 10,000 in a day. Walking in place counts right?

BF made dinner last night - baked chicken breast with whole wheat panko bread crumbs and tomato, mozzarella and balsamic salad - the basil that he bought was moldy so we missed out on that part, but dinner was good and nutritious. We didn't have a single "super bowl" food, but I did have a few glasses of wine (and am paying with a slight headache this morning).

Happy Monday!

[sarcasticgirl]

Acemom- walking in place totally counts. that's how I am getting quite a lot of my steps right now since it is all winter outside. I walk forward and backwards in a 3-4 ft area in my living room lol. it gets the job done. what kind of fitbit did you get? I have the ONE and I just keep it clipped to my bra in the middle. it makes it easy to keep track of.


Congrats to everyone on their January Progress!!! 

Everyone has done such an amazing job. I can't wait to see what kind of damage we can do in February! 

[tcu2003]

Ugh, not a good weekend as we were traveling, and in the car for some amount each day.  Plus it was cold and ick where we traveled to, so no walking outdoors, and no treadmills or anything at the family members we were staying with.  On the bright side, I didn't really snack during the drives, when normally we do - and we took snack food with us, so it was available, but I chose not to eat then, which is progress.

I haven't been weighing in weekly as that usually de-motivates me, but I have been tracking my walking workouts.  I did walk (with a tiny, tiny bit of jogging) 37.5 miles over 20 days, so I am doing good in keeping motivated and trying to do something at least several times per week.  I also kept track of my stair climbing, and climbed 527 flights over the month, which averages out to 17 flights/day.  Now to keep this up, and add in some other goals this month.

[mizbear]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe marionth had the great idea for the recaps!

[sarcasticgirl]

Feb 3, 2014 13:31:43 GMT -5 mizbear said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe marionth had the great idea for the recaps!

I think it was a fantastic idea! Something we should keep up as the months pass. I find it pretty motivating. 

[acemom]

Sarcastic - I got the Zip. I started playing around with the site a little bit today to join some groups and challenges. I find I can add in some steps if I walk in place brushing my teeth and washing my hands and doing dishes... Trying to come up with extra ways to add some in!

TCU - 37.5 miles is awesome! Nice job on avoiding the snacks in the car too! I think that was one of my big problems when I went to Chicago. I drive 5 hours and snacked the whole way - on salty, crunchy food

I agree that the recap is a great idea!!! I need to go back and see if I made any real January goals and do an update if I did. If not, I'll just try to do a small, quick recap.

[sarcasticgirl]

acemom- I had the zip for a while. You can totally clip that in the middle of your bra. During the summer, I go outside as much as possible during the work day. I try and walk around the block in the morning and in the afternoon and get in a walk around lunch time. 
I have been known to walk around the entire office a few times. and I make lots of trips to the kitchen for water and tea and take the long way to the ladies. i also have a hard time standing still... when waiting in line or for the train I'm always doing steps side to side. it all adds up! 

[Happy prose]

Sigh...such good intentions I had. I knew I was going to blow it Superbowl Sunday- even did extra at the gym. Woke up today to a snow storm- no work. Yep, trapped in the house with all leftover junk food i had intended to take to work. Ate junk all day. Tomorrow will be a better day! 

[MarionTh230]

Hehehe, yeah, it was me that asked for the recaps.  I was so ecstatic that I made it through the whole month that I figured everybody else had some great stuff from the the month too 

chiver - then you have plenty of time to steal 1st place 

tcu - no snacks in the car takes a lot of willpower!  And you walked 37.5 miles in 20 days 

mizbear - I love herbs de provence on chicken and garlic powder/onion powder/pepper always goes on everything.  I wouldn't have thought to add the chili powder though.  And then smoky paprika.....it sounds really good though.

bsbound - I smell saltwater and suntan lotion in your future 

I generally hate Mondays.  Always have a hard time going back to work after the weekend.     But today hasn't been bad.  So Happy Monday to the rest of you too!!!

[mizbear]

GREAT NEWS!!!

I went to go buy a sports bra today (I figured it would be easier to get in and out of for surgery next week and when I have my shoulder done, plus I could start looking at options) I had to drop a cup size, PLUS I probably could have dropped a band size as well, but we figured we would stay with this band size for now until done with surgery. Mom also said that I may have been able to drop 2 cup sizes due to the gapping on the sides of this one- but this one is more for comfort than anything even though it is a medium support.

I also tried on some jeans. If I buy size 8 in a slightly different cut than what I have now- I can get into them...

Really tempted to try on my 8s tonight to see if they will go on!