Well, well, well…

Well this past week was great. I missed my last weigh-in though because I had to work late but I went in the next day and I was down 2.2 pounds. So I’m doing well being back on food. I am excited and looking forward to this upcoming week.

My workout plan for this week (I will back date to Monday and go from this past Monday to this Sunday – sorry) is:

Monday – None
Tuesday – None
Wednesday – BodyPump Class 60 minutes, Zumba 60 minutes
Thursday – Zumba 60 minutes
Friday – Zumba 60 minutes
Saturday – BodyPump Class 60 minutes, UJam Class or Cardio Dance Class 60 minutes
Sunday – Zumba 60 minutes

I didn’t do any workouts this past Monday because it was the day after my birthday so I wanted to relax. Also, on Tuesday, same thing lol. Being a bum lmao!!!

But I did have a great week. I am eating super well – breakfast is typically a 2-egg scramble with tomatoes, spinach and a handful of ham. Snacks are shakes and/or bars. Lunch is a salad and dinner has been a shake but since we just went up to 3 weeks and starches I have been experimenting a little bit with other veggies and stuff.

Anyway, that’s my update for now. I hope to blog more now that I am more settled in my new place. I have a lot to unpack still but at least I’m all moved in…

Take care!

Me

My Workout Schedule for this Week

Here’s my workout schedule. Since my favorite Zumba instructor at the Klubhouse is on vacation this week, it might be different from next week’s. :-)

Monday – 9PM Treadmill & Weights at the Racquet Club
Tuesday – 5PM Cardio Dance class
Wednesday – 5:30AM Cycle Class at the Racquet Club
Thursday – 9PM Treadmill & Weights at the Racquet Club
Friday – 5:30 AM Cycle Class at the Racquet Club AND/OR 6PM Zumba at the Klubhouse*
Saturday – 11AM Cardio Dance Class**
Sunday – 4PM Cardio Dance Class**

*I may only go to the Zumba class because Wednesday’s cycle class will be the first time I go to a cycle class and depending on whether I like it or not, I may or may not continue.

**Considering that this weekend is my birthday weekend (my birthday is June 16th yay!!!!) I may not workout at all this weekend – which depends on how good I do workout-wise all week AND whether or not I get my hair done on Friday or Saturday. :-)

I’m back!!!!

OMG – it’s almost been a month since I posted. I apologize to anyone who actually follows this thing… I guess its more of a disappointment to me for slacking on posting. It really helps with motivation and accountability. Anyways, I know I probably sound like a broken record but I will do my best to update my blog.

I have been super busy which is no excuse but I will provide updates here and then keep things moving.

LIFE UPDATES

• My husband is still deployed but the bright side is we are almost at the 3 month mark which means halfway!!!!!
• I’m still looking forward to starting our family when he gets back in October. Wait, I didn’t share that with you yet? Oh, well there you go! lol!
• I have been packing up our 2 bedroom 1 office condo for our move into a studio (gasp!!!) loft downtown. Why you ask? Well, we decided that we wanted to make the most of our last year (God-willing) of not having little babies running around SO after weeks of discussions and pro/cons lists we decided to make the move for our next chapter in life. It will be a lifestyle change for sure! Everything is within walking distance (except the commissary which we will still do major shopping at) plus we will get to jog through the neighborhood, there are parks nearby with tennis courts (love tennis!!!!) and it’s just an all-around perfect location. We signed the lease at the end of May and most of our stuff was moved in yesterday. The rest of the things that weren’t moved will be put in storage.

WEIGHT MANAGEMENT/BODY UPDATES

• I have lost a total of 53 pounds so far! YAY! I’ve updated my stats if anyone cares. :-)
• I am back to eating food – one meal a day this week (150 cals of protein and 50 cals of veggies) plus 5 products (3 shakes and 2 bars)
• I am getting a lot of positive comments. Two people this morning have been like “You’re so skinny! OMG!” lol!!!! It’s funny to me bc I’m not skinny per se but I’m so much smaller! It feels good to hear.

I am really in a great place. Looking great, feeling great, getting more comfortable being active and reintroducing food. I am thankful and feel blessed for getting this far on the program and I look forward to everything else that comes along! :-)

As far as blogging goes, I am not going to post my days anymore (day 100, day 101, etc) simply because it was just my way of keeping track of what day I was on and what I had accomplished – it put it in perspective for me. What I will try to do though is post more often, including a weekly post of my workouts for the week. I hope that can evolve into something else but for now I will jus limit the workout posts to what I anticipate doing. Putting it in writing helps me a lot! :-)

I hope everyone else is staying successful. If not, one day off is just one day – don’t make it two. Get right back up and start afresh tomorrow. :-)

OH before I forget – I have an update on my streaking. I sucked at it lol! I lasted 2 days and then I stopeed. The second day, after running outside for the first time, I got all redfaced, sneezy, throat achy…lol and then it just kind of put me off because I was really looking forward to doing it outside. My face was even burning afterwards! But I will try again – soon. :-)

Thanks for reading! :-)

 

Day 88 (and a summary of all the days in between)

I have been super busy and super exhausted. Work has been insane but I have to make time for the things that matter right? I will do my best to keep updating as often as I can.

Anyway, I have been on plan and sticking to my exercise as required. The full Optifast fast should be done on June 5th which gives me a little over 2 weeks to maximize the hell out of it! Lol!

Let’s see…what’s noteworthy? I had two weigh-ins since I last blogged. The first one, I lost 5.2 pounds and on the second one from this past Wednesday I lost 0.4 for a total of 5.6 pounds lost since the last time I checked in here. I’m happy about that. I have been weight training a lot so the 5.2 was way better than what I expected for that week and the 0.4 was not met with disappointment at all. I have also been trying to increase my water intake as well so…its still a work in progress.

Medically I’m great. I didn’t have any issues with anything (blood pressure, sugar, cholesterol, etc.) before the program started and the monthly lab/dr. sessions have shown that my numbers have only gotten better so that’s good.

One thing that has changed for me on the plan is that instead of 5 shakes and a bar I have been approved to go down to 4 shakes and 2 bars. I mentioned to the Dr. on Wednesday during my monthly check-up that I had been feeling really full lately and he asked if I wanted to go up to 2 bars and drop to 4 shakes. Well of course I did! So that will start this coming Wednesday since I had already paid and collected my shakes for this current week. I am excited to see how that affects me for the last 2 weeks of the full fast.

My workouts are getting more and more regular. I follow a blog (OptifastMom – you should check it out; she’s doing an awesome job) and she gave me the idea to start streaking – running a mile a day come rain or shine for as long as possible to get a “streak” going – and I started that yesterday. I researched it and there are a lot of streakers out there and it is super inspiring, just reading their stories and all. SO I drove down my street with my odometer reset to 0 and clocked how far a mile would be. Pretty much starting from the gates of my condo and all the way down to the intersection is 1/2 a mile so going and coming back makes a mile. Doesn’t seem that bad at all!!! We’ll know for sure once I do it this evening – yesterday I did it at the gym on the treadmill so this will be my first official outside day.

All in all I am happy. Getting settled into this deployment – May is almost over which will mean 2 months down and 4 to go! Work is good. Life is good.

Hope all is well for everyone else out there especially my Opti-buddies!!!

Days 70 – 75

Day 70
I had a great day! I had a personal training session at 6:15am and then work. After that, weigh-in. I lost 2.2 pounds today. Not too shabby! :-) I am out of the 200 and double digits! I see myself getting under 199 in the next couple of weeks! :-)

Day 71
Today was pretty decent. I did a light Zumba workout at home – 30 minutes, medium impact. It felt good. It’s what I do when I can’t make it to the gym. Better that than nothing, right? I also sent my husband a package full of junk food and a new X-Box 360 power cable. That’s random, I know. When I went to get his junk food I totally wanted to grab myself a bag of chips or a chocolate bar but of course there’s no way that was happening. It didn’t even take much for me to get over the initial desire for the snacks/junk food/contraband, so I’m proud of myself.

Day 72
Today was a great day! Went to a Zumba class after work and had a blast. Went to bed fairly early since I had volunteered to work OverTime to help out another unit at work tomorrow. Pretty mellow day…

Day 73
Woke up at the crack of dawn and headed over to the office. Worked from 6am to 9am and then got home. My intentions were to crawl in bed and go back to sleep but one thing after another kept on coming up until it was 6pm and I had to hurriedly get ready for my friend’s birthday party. Birthday party, you ask? Yes. My friend had invited me to her birthday party and the event before this one, I had declined. So rather than decline I got dressed, got her a card and a gift, drove over to the restaurant where the party was being held and had her meet me outside. I gave her the card, we talked, hugged it out and then I left. Some of you might think that is crazy. It’s not. The reason why it’s not is because I know myself. I know that if I had gone in I would have been beyond tempted to eat. It was a Japanese restaurant! Fried rice. Steak. Shrimp. SUSHI! Sake bombs! Hello!!!!!! Those are my weaknesses. There’s no way I would have been able to participate. Some people in my Cohort at Kaiser have shared that they go out to dinner with friends and take product. Some have shared that they eat the product beforehand. Others just got and it doesn’t bother them. OTHERS go and eat food and get back on plan the next day. I know my limits and I know what my triggers are. It’s like my relationship philosophy… Why put yourself in a situation where you know that something could go wrong? Stay away! Lol! And that’s what I did. :-)

Day 74
I went to bed at 2:30am. WHY? Well, I was worried about my husband. I typically hear from him twice a day. This could be either by phone or video chat. In addition to that regular communication there are emails ALL through the day, text messages (yes, he found a way to send me SMS messages from his iPad to my phone) and alerts from whatever game we are playing telling me its my turn (we play Words With Friends, Ruzzle, Draw Something 2…you get the picture). Well, all day Saturday there was nothing. Not a peep. No activity on Facebook. I was understandably FREAKED out! I mean, if communication had been infrequent from the get-go then it wouldn’t have been a big deal but since this deployment began there has never been a day without communication. Eventually, my husband emailed me. He had left his laptop charger and his iPad at the fire station. I couldn’t stop laughing. I was tired and drained and I couldn’t help it.

After the adventures of the night, I woke up at 9:30 went to a Zumba class at 11am with my sister Roxy and then we sat at Starbucks and talked for about 2 hours. We hit another Zumba class at 4pm (this is with my super energetic initial instructor) and had a BLAST! I was drained and tired so after I got home, showered and did some laundry, I popped an Advil, ate a bar and went to bed really early. Great day. :-)

Day 75
Went to train with my trainer at 6:45am. Yay. Great workout. He increased my reps on everything to 15. COME ON!!! lol! Anyway, I made it out alive! No Zumba tonight; the studio is getting their floors done so it will be closed. I will probably do my 30 minute Zumba routine tonight and then go to bed.

On another more concerned note, I’m wondering where all my other Zumba blog buddies who started around the same time as I did are… I miss you guys and I hope you are doing well!!!! If you need any support, I’m here for you! We all are!

Day 69

Today is day 69. Tomorrow marks the end of week 10 on the fast! Thats a LONG time. Which means we only have like 5 or 6 weeks left! I am super excited yet anxious at the same time. It is going to be weird to eat food again! I just hope I don’t get sick from the shock of it!

Anyway, the past few days have been pretty good. The only weird thing is that it is that time of the month again and I am probably going to have a ‘meh’ weigh-in tomorrow. Oh well. I’m prepared for it! :-) I had my second weigh-in with my trainer yesterday morning. He wanted the weigh-ins to be on Mondays but since I started on a Wednesday I got 2 weigh-ins in less than a week. Points that came up were (1) I weighed exactly the same on both days (2) my weight of muscle was 120 on day 1 but 121.6 on day two whcih means I gained a pound of muscle (3) my body fat % went down 0.6%, and (4) my water levels were low. Real low. So this motivates me to continue training because although the total weight didn’t move, my muscle and fat numbers did. I lost body fat!!!! That means a lot. I do however have to increase my water intake though and I will start that now.

So after seeing such interesting numbers on the scale I decided to go see how much the scale was online because I wanted one just like it! It was SUPER motivating!!!! But then I found out that it was on sale – for $399!!!! UM – NO!!!!! LOL! No way! hahaha! I told my husband and he said we could look into investing in one for later when he gets back from overseas but STILL I don’t think I really will make that a priority. $400??? For a SCALE? My trainer can justify it since that’s his business – he needs something like that but I guess I will be popping over to the fitness studio whenever I want to know my weight lol!

Anyway, weigh-in is tomorrow. As long as I don’t gain I’ll be happy! :-)

Day 64

Today was good. I was super sore from my personal training session yesterday morning. I am happy that I have started training again though.

Anyway, the day was pretty uneventful. I drank my shakes and had a bar after work. I am actually beginning to LIKE the flavor of the bars. I never thought I’d say that but I really do look forward to them! :-)

Anyway, hope all is well with everyone else! :-)

Days 62 & 63

These past couple of days have been great! Updates:

Day 62 was uneventful. I had some disappointing news at work, nothing major, but I needed a hug from my hubby and I couldn’t have one. I was obviously disappointed but I’m ok. I just miss him a lot. Stayed on plan. Went to Zumba in the evening. Typical day.

Day 63
I finally got my weigh-in and I lost 7.8 for the total 2 week period so that’s about an average of 3.9 lbs per week. Not bad! I have obviously met my 30 pound loss goal and then some! :-) I’m excited.

I had a personal trainer last year around the summer and I have 20 workouts that I didn’t use up so I decided to start my training again. I met with my trainer at 5:45 this morning and he kicked my butt!!!! I love the studio. I should post pics at some point. It is a torture chamber lol! Just kidding!!! Custom Fitness is amazing and I am excited to be working out with my trainer Hugo again! :-)

Overall, I had a great day! Hope you all are having just as great days! :-)

WHOA! Days 50 – 61

That’s a lot of days to skip. Wow. Sorry. I’ve been so busy!

Let’s see…in summary I have stuck to my product the entire time as well as kept up my working out. I will elaborate on the working out in a second. First I would like t share my big challenge. I had a challenging last minute business trip last Monday morning where I had to make arrangements to leave on Tuesday through Friday morning. Problem was that I normally get my product for the week on Wednesday. Bummer. Plus I couldnt reach anyone at Kaiser and I probably would not have been able to pick it up in time so what did I end up doing? Well, thanks for asking lol! While waiting at the airport, I researched “Optifast for sale, Orange County” and after going through many search results I found a place an hour and a half way from where I would be. I called, they confirmed that they had the Opti800 and I picked up what I needed. It was a little over priced but I didn’t need the full 42. I had some left over from when I either purchased extra or couldn’t consume all 42 (back during my first week when I threw up from being on product…) so that took care of that issue. Next issue was that I would miss the weigh-in. I didn’t really know how I felt about that. I mean, I love my group meetings, I love my friends there, I love the motivation that I get from seeing my results AND talking to my friends so I was scared about not being motivated enough to resist the Starbucks at the airport or the See’s candy that I usually get on my return flight but I worried for nothing! It all went well. Got back home perfectly intact with no horrors to report! :-)

I was able to work out while I was gone. I actually decided that since there would be no Zumba classes or tennis for me for much of the week I would start training for my upcoming 5K. So I downloaded a C25K app on my phone and began running. I started on Tuesday. It alternates 1 minute of jogging with 1.5 minutes of walking for Week 1. I hit a mile by 16.10 minutes in. Not bad considering all the walking that I was doing PLUS 5 minutes of that was a warm-up of walking so I’m not too worried about my time or pace as of right now. Hopefully I can tighten all that up before race day in August. On day 2, I hit my mile at 15.40 minutes in. That’s a 30 second improvement! I can’t wait to see where I’m at at the end of the whole 8 week program!!!

The weekend was good. Laid back. I went and FINALLY got my reward mani-pedi and wax. I waited this long because once I start getting them it becomes a regular thing and I was kind of trying to wait until further in to my weight loss to start keeping up with stuff like that. I spend most of my time outside of work in gross workout clothes or pajamas. Anyway, I ‘m glad to be back. Glad that I made it through the trip. Glad that I’ve started running again and I’m just glad to be alive. Thinking about the tragedy in Boston makes me want to keep running for myself of course but for those who can’t anymore. I’m dedicating my 5K on August 3rd to them….

On a lighter, too much information note, I had bought a bra back in early March but it was racerback with the clasp in the front and it just fit really weirdly. This morning I decided on a cute blouse to wear to work but the bad part was that the shirt is very sheer so all my undergarments had to be black. My other black bras were in the laundry so I went into the bag where I had put the bra and receipt with every intention of taking it back and put it on and…it fit perfectly!!! Yay!!!! :-) So yeah, tmi…progress…call it what you want!!!!

Anyway, thanks for reading. I will try to do better with my blog.

Day 49 – Update

Well, well, well… Great day all around. I’m sleepy so this will be short. All my crazy hard work paid off this week and I am proud to say that I had a great day and an event greater weigh-in. I lost 5.4 pounds tonight. Yay!!!!!!!! I’m so happy, proud, relieved, grateful…all that. I set a goal and achieved it. Hopefully this only motivates me to keep it up. This whole program can be super intense but it’s victories like these that make it worthwhile.

I know I’ve mentioned my “cohort-mates” before but I’m grateful for the 2 that I’ve bonded with the most. We challenge each other, motivate each other, commiserate with each other and are just there for each other. I was scared that I wouldn’t have adequate support once my hubby left but that is all behind me now. I have them, I have y’all and I still have hubby’s support regardless of how many miles are between us.

Anyway, it’s late. Im going to update my stats and go to bed. 

Nite!

Day 49 – Mini-Post

Today is weigh-in day. I am super excited. I am sitting here at work blogging and counting down until it is 4:15 so I can make my way over to Kaiser. 4 more hours (and 10 minutes). I have a good feeling about this week. No time-of-the month to throw me off. No emotional ups and downs with sleep deprivation like last week. I am shooting for at LEAST 4 pounds. Will I be disappointed if I’m wrong? Honestly, a little….but as long as I lose greater than 1 pound this week, I will be SUPER grateful!!!!

Oh – before I go, I wanted to call myself out on not following through with something. I had committed to doing the arms exercises that I started about a week ago for 2 weeks and monitoring my progress. Well I did not follow through. I am a little disappointed with myself considering that if I had stuck to it I would have been halfway done with the 2 week committment by now. I will promise to start this up again tonight and I am going to put a reminder on my iPhone to remind me. I need to do it for myself and for my arms sake. :-) A little motivation is that I will be auditioning at California Family Fitness in exactly 2 weeks so sexier arms means extra confidence right??? Right! :-)

I will be back later to post an update! :-)

To all my fellow Optifasters – good job and good luck!!!

Day 48

Today was a good day. I was kind of sad this morning so I decided to stay home from work. I guess I should say I “changed my mind” about going to work. :-) I say that because I was dressed – brown slacks (that I haven’t been able to fit in a while – YAY), army green top and black sweater – and I was already in my car about to get on the freeway when I started thinking about my husband, how much I miss him and that I really wanted to talk to him uninhibited because I had updates on things that I wanted to share. He has a way to send online sms messages to my cell and I can send them back which is awesome, and he uses that to let me know when he is about to call, or that he misses me, wants me to listen to/view something online, etc. Anyway, I know I can’t talk that freely at work since the walls have ears so I just went home. I’m a pretty private person and even just updates about the Optifast Program or weight loss are personal and not something I would like to share with ALL of my office mates. As soon as I got home I sent him an SMS telling him he could reach me on the landline or cell and that I wouldn’t be at work all day. Within the hour he called on ooVoo which is a video chat platform and we had a good talk. It was good to see him on video too. I felt better and I had a really good relaxing day at home.

Had all my shakes today. Drank quite a bit of water. Speaking of water. I mistakenly bought a case of Nestle Pure Life Splash Lemon flavored water. You’re probably like how do you mistakenly do that? WELL lol, I shop at the Commissary (which in English is the military grocery store – its less expensive, they have a CRAZY selection meaning anything you ever had will probably be found here and if not they order it, they have CRAZY sales – I went in once and they had Red Baron pizzas on sale for 99 cents regularly like $7 and another time RockStars were on sale for 99 cents regular $4, AND they have no taxes except for the standard California tax on sodas and bottled items like water, soda, beer I think, etc.). Anyway, when you go towards the checkout at the McClellan AFB Commissary you have to make your way through this strategically placed maze that has all the things you probably forgot like candies, cookies, cereal….lots of promo items…and cases of water! Well, I saw this 32 pack of water for $3.99 so I jumped on it. When I got home I put some in the fridge and didn’t think about them until I was walking out the door the morning of my Zumba training so I grabbed a few and threw them in one of my bags. Later on, I was thirsty after our first set of dancing so I grabbed one, sipped it  and tasted a faint sweet lemony taste which was shocking – I thought the water had gone bad – but refreshing. Since then I cannot get enough of this water! I have one here right now. 2 in my workout bags. One on my nightstand lol. I’m addicted. See how deprived my tastebuds must be?

If my husband ever reads this he will for sure be thinking to himself, “there she goes with her long a$$ stories”! LOL! Yes I know, it takes me forever to get to the point/punchline sometimes but it’s just because I like for everyone to know the back story lol!!!!! :-)

Anyway, I think I should be done for now. Oh wait – I worked out last night. I went to Zumba (cardio dance) with the instructor who is super intense. She has her own programs now in a studio where she rents (not sure if I mentioned that) and I had a great workout. I was more aware of my moves in the mirror and very impressed with myself if I may say so. I think its the knowledge and awareness that comes with being an instructor. All the steps seem different now and I can appreciate them more.

Ok, that’s all for the day!!!! I’m done. Hope you enjoyed it!

Have a great night!

Day 47

Today was a good day. Stayed on my diet. Hit the gym as promised for an hour – Zumba. I was low/medium impact tonight just because I want to take it easy on my knee. We danced all day yesterday at Zumba training so I just don’t want to over do it. Don’t get me wrong – there’s no pain (unless you count the residual twinge I feel EVERY TIME I go up the stairs at home). I just want to be proactive.

I feel funny when I say “stayed on my diet” as if there is a possibility that I could have strayed. Which, I guess there is since anything is possible but I know I wouldn’t because all I have to do is think about the money I have put into this or how I would feel afterwards OR even how I would feel knowing that I had to be true to all my supporters and fess up and all that keeps me very compliant. :-) I am happy that it is easy for me because I know it isn’t for others. Some people quit. Some people cheat regularly. I actually know someone who does – but I will keep that info confidential. Rules. :-)

Anyway, I’m feeling good today. Sleepy, but good. I think I will be able to catch up on my sleep this weekend since I have very little planned.

Have a wonderful day! :-)

Day 46 – Zumba Instructor!!! Yeah, that’s me!

I did it! I got my Zumba Instructor Basic 1 license! I spent the whole day over an hour and a half away getting trained with other like-minded people. I made a few new friends, lots of contacts and I had a BLAST!!! I am completely drained but wanted to at least write something.

On another note, today is my 4-year wedding anniversary and my other half is thousands of miles away on deployment. I miss him a lot but honestly I am SO glad that I scheduled the Zumba training today because it has kept me distracted on this super-sentimnetal day…! ! Anyway at least we got to talk and video chat briefly.

I’m DRAINED! Got to go to bed so that I can get up on time tomorrow.

Till later!

Days 44 & 45

Day 44
Great day. I did workout last night. Great diet day. Can’t wait to be back on real food again though… Got to chat with my husband multiple times today so I’m a happy camper.

Day 45
Today was a decent day. Worked out a little bit. I might need to start making myself go to bed because I have been so busy during the day but I haven’t been making myself go to bed on time. I think it will help me overall… Have a great day!

Day 43

Today was good. I was super duper motivated (can you tell???) and I got a lot done. I was busy all day up until about 7:45pm. After I got home and relaxed for a few minutes, I decided to make my workout for the day a home workout. I put on my gym clothes and perfected a routine for my upcoming Zumba auditon and then I did arms. I used 2 lb weights and did 15 tricep kickbacks, 30 pilates presses, 15 bicep curls, 15 chest flys, and 15 cross shoulder extensions. THEN I repeated this twice. Once I was done with all that, I did bicep curls until failure. Failure was 30 super quick reps. So all in all it was a good workout. Super light weight. I will start doing this every night for the next two weeks and monitor my progress.

Diet-wise, I did great. Everything was on schedule. I’m really glad I have bars this week. They are filling and they make me think I ate something amazing. :-)

Anyway, stay focused everyone and enjoy the rest of the week!!! :-)

Super Duper Motivated

I just feel so motivated. I know it is probably more of a coping mechanism than anything else but I am going to enjoy the ride haha!:-)

I paid for my Zumba license workshop and I am proud to announce that all day on Sunday I will be spending time with a group of like-minded people getting my Zumba license. All day meaning I will leave my house at 6am and return at about 9pm. But it will be well worth it. I am so excited. Before I went to sleep last night I came up with a playlist for my first class (and at one point I got out of bed and went through some new choreography for one song that I just had to do at the moment – did I say I was obsessive???) but then I went back to bed. Anyway, I am excited and can’t wait to see where this mini-journey takes me.

I plan on doing a mini workout like I did yesterday tonight since I have a full day today and won’t be able to make it to Zumba. I think 20 minutes on the bike, 5 on the rowing machine and maybe 5 spent doing lateral pull downs should be enough. I will get in a full hour of cardio for sure tomorrow.

Anyway, good luck everyone! :-)

Update: Days 36 – 42

Hey y’all! I missed a bunch of days so I am going to play catch up now. I have to do better than this and I will considering the fact that blogging here and keeping in touch with everyone motivates me beyond anything else. So here goes!

Day 36
Today I went on my business trip. Perfect presentation but pretty hectic day. I MADE it though!!! I kind of screwed up my intake schedule but I was ok. I binged on shakes once I got home lol.

Day 37
Lazy day. Didn’t go to work. Hung out with my husband. When he went to out-process on base for the upcoming deployment I went to a Zumba class.

Speaking of Zumba – with the possibility of an overseas PCS (Permanent Change of Station) in the next year or so, I have decided to get my Zumba license. I have been thinking about this for a while. A couple of years really. More so during these past few weeks when I learned that it was a huge possibility that a base overseas is in our future. Zumba is portable so I can do it anywhere. You may also remember in the very beginning, back in February, I posted that my dance instructor (initially Zumba but then switched to “Cardio Dance” for licensing reasons) was leaving California Family Fitness. Well, I, on a whim submitted an application to the gym for a Group Fitness Instructor opening since I have the Certification for it (had it since last September). SO – longer story short (:-)) I got a call back asking me to come in for an audition. I agreed and chose April 24th as my audition date. That gives me time to get my Zumba license and prepare choreography for the 30 minute routine. I am very excited (and scared) about the audition. Its intense… I will be leading a class of the fitness directors so it has to be good.

Anyway, I stuck to the diet of course and had a pretty good day!

Day 38
My husband took me to a park and we laid in the grass for hours just talking, napping and cuddling. We had a nice time. We had chosen this day to celebrate our 4th anniversary since it is on April 7th but his deployment starts on April 1st so he won’t be here… It was one of the best days ever. Simple. Fun. Sweet. For the evening, we went to the Lakers game. Just like we did on the evening of our wedding day. It was a great game, we had a great time and I didn’t even miss the pizza and beer that I normally would’ve gotten.

All in all, I had a great day.

Day 39
Today we watched a movie and just hung out at home all day. My husband was busy packing up all his last-minute items. I’m telling you, the bags he had were SO heavy. I couldn’t even lift one halfway off the ground and I’m a strong girl! God Bless him! He has to carry those bags all the way to the stupid desert. Anyway, hopefully he will ship some stuff home like he did at the end of the last deployment because thats a LOT of stuff!!!!!

I stuck to the plan. Didn’t work out since it was Easter. Happy Easter everyone!!!!! :-)

Day 40
Today is where the madness begins. Don’t worry I stayed on plan – I’ve never gone off BUT I stayed up all day yesterday, all night last night and all day today. I was up for over 36 hours straight and this is where I believe my weight-loss took a beating. I have read (as I’m sure we all have) about sleep being very important if you’re trying to lose weight. I have listened to that a little but never more seriously than I am listening to that advice now. I was up all morning with hubby – took him to the airport, cried my eyes out all day and then finally fell asleep when he called to tell me his first few flights were out of the way and that he was checking in to his hotel. I drank my shakes on auto-pilot and didn’t do much really… This was a BLAH day. Thank God that Cesar Chavez day is celebrated in Cali because I was off work today…

Day 41
Today was ok. Again on auto-pilot. I am going to have to re-adjust to life since things will be different now. I did stay busy at work today. I volunteered for some extra projects to fill in the next several days so I don’t think I will have that much idle time for about 3 weeks or so which is definitely what I need.

I stayed on product and that’s about it. No gym. No work-out. Nada.

Day 42
Well, what do you know? As expected, I had a low number today – 0.4 pounds for a total of 22.8 pounds so far. I DO NOT feel bad about this at all. I expected it. I have had no sleep and I have been off my usual schedule. I DO however predict at least 5 pounds next week. I already know it will happen so that’s my motivation right now. Unfortunately, or fortunately – depending on how you look at it – I know my body VERY well. The stress and the water weight from my period usually has me gaining weight so I consider the fact that I didn’t gain to be an AMAZING thing. I know they’re just numbers but when you are as obsessive as I am and you are paying such close attention to your weight as I am right now (and have been for the past 6 months or so) it truly becomes psychological. You might KNOW that you weight-trained this week and gained muscle OR you’re on your period now and are retaining water OR you wore a heavier outfit to weigh-in OR you drank a lot of water before your weigh-in OR whatever it might be BUT it it is hard to get past the number. For this I would just suggest that we all take it for what it is and then set ourselves up to completely obliterate that scale next week. That’s all you can do. And that’s what I am going to do. I typically never work out on Wednesdays but today I decided to hit the gym every day, drink all my required H20 and stick strictly to my intake schedule. I did 4 miles on the bike as fast as I could (15 minutes) and then I did 5 minutes on the rowing machine. Not much but still, compared to last Wednesday its better than nothing right???

A couple of my friends in my cohort just decided that this past week was an all around blah week and decided to go balls to the wall this week. We’ll see what that looks like next Wednesday but I am SUPER motivated right now!!!!
Here’s to better numbers next week! Good luck to us all!!!! :-)

Day 35

Day 35

Short post here. I weighed in tonight and I’m down 1.6 pounds. My lowest week so far but once again, it’s almost that time of the month so I am pretty sure my next good weigh in will be the week after this one. What am I saying?.. Any week with a loss is a good week right? Haha! I’m happy! I doubt I will be working out much in the next few days unless my husband wants to join me. I have to work tomorrow – I have a presentation in LA so I will be leaving home at about 4:30 am to catch a 6 am flight, then I will present from 10am to about noon, then fly back at 3 pm to hopefully arrive home at 4:30 which gives me just enough time to unwind for a few minutes before my 6 pm tennis lesson. Other than that, I plan on spending time with my husband. If he has to go to base to handle last-minute stuff then I MIGHT sneak off to the gym… Anyway, have an amazing week!!!!

Days 29 – 34

Day 29 – Day 34

This has been a good week. I actually took it down a notch on my working out. I went 4 times this week for an hour each. I’m going to pick it up in a couple of weeks but I’m just trying to get through the next few days because I need all my strength. My husband, my amazing, sweet, wonderful husband – partner in crime, best friend, confidante, biggest supporter – is deploying to the Middle East on April 1st. He will be gone for 6 months. It’s really hard to think about and I know I will get through it but its just hard right now. It’s our second one but its longer this time and I feel like it kind of just crept up on me. I’ve been so focused on the program and other stuff so it just seems sudden. Anyway, I’ll be off work for a few more days and hopefully will be able to get my fill of my husband before he leaves. :) Needless to say, I’ve had a lot of distractions getting in the way of my blogging but I will be much better after April 1st. :) I hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for all your wonderful comments and support. And most of all, thanks for reading!!!! :-)

Day 28 – END OF WEEK FOUR!!!!

Today marks the end of my 4th week on Optifast. A month. It’s crazy. I can’t believe I have been drinking shakes, eating bars and working out for 4 weeks.

Before I go into my weigh-in results, I would like to say a big thank you to my 2 best cohort-mates in my class at Kaiser and to my friends that I have made here in the blog world for motivating me. You have made me more accountable. You have listened and read and given feedback and cheered and commiserated this whole time. I appreciate it so much! You guys keep me honest lol! This program is HARD! But its easier with support! Thanks so much again!!!!!

I’d like to highlight some successes and challenges of the program so far. Let’s start with the challenges….

CHALLENGES SO FAR

1. I seem unable to reach 10,000 steps consistently – we talked about it in group tonight so I will be trying to walk more instead of depending on my Zumba and/or tennis to get my steps in.
2. No fiber yet – Well, I haven’t had serious issues (TMI lol) but I think I should bite the bullet and add the fiber. I think I might try this week.
3. The Soup is TERRIBLE – I don’t know that this is a challenge that I should even try overcoming. I tried them both and I felt very bad afterwards. C’est la vie…
4. POPCORN – I still want popcorn. This will be my demise. I feel it. I want popcorn all the time. ALL THE TIME! What is wrong with me?
5. Weight Training – I have to get more comfortable with myself because I really feel that I should incorporate weight training into my regime. My arms need the work and I would love the results, I just have to get over the fear of muscle gain causing the number on the scale to go up. It is really psychological…I just have to get there. I am not ready to say that I will start weight training yet but when I am ready, I’ll post it here first!!! :-)

That’s about all that I am challenged on right now…so here are my successes…

SUCCESSES SO FAR

1. My size 14 & 16 jeans don’t fit anymore AT ALL! But my 12’s are too small! So I am jeans-less for a couple of weeks. That might sound negative but I PROMISE its a success!!!
2. All my size 12 dresses fit perfectly!!!!! :-)
3. I can see my collar bones again! :-)
4. Lastly, but by no means the least, I have lost a total of…..drum roll….21 pounds!!!!!! :-) Yep! I did! I am so happy!!!!

So there you have it. One month on Optifast and I am on my way to a healthier and happier me. I know that this is a step by step journey. I can’t get THERE in one day but over time I will be where I want to be physically and health-wise, and I am grateful. Again, I expect the results to slow down but I am going to enjoy this full fasting time and make the most of it because I know it only gets harder…

Thanks for reading! :-)

Days 24 – 27

Day 24

I posted on that morning – I was so excited to track my calories burned at Zumba for the second day in a row. Anyway, diet-wise I did great. I’m feeling really good about myself. Happy that I am sticking to it and happy that I am exercising again.

Day 25

Zumba this morning at 11am. This time it was the regular instructors from the Monday and Friday classes last week and I burned 857 calories in 71 minutes! I am loving this!!!! Diet was great; same old same old.

Day 26

Last day of Zumba for me until Friday of this week. Forgot to wear the watch part of my Polar so no record of calories burned for the day. It was a good class though so I’m sure I did ok. I wore my knee brace. Even though there have been no issues since I started, I’d rather be safe than sorry, you know? So that was cool. Diet was fine again! :-) I am getting really comfortable on the whole plan and I am thrilled with my progress. I know it won’t always be like this so I am savoring this time where it seems to just work easily for me.

Day 27

Today I finally got to use my Polar monitor on the tennis court and I ended up burning 455 calories in 55 minutes. We didn’t do an hour because (1) I was a little late, and (2) it started to rain at exactly 6:58! Lol! Anyway, I am glad because I was ready to settle for 250 to 300 calories and I’m actually burning more! It’s so exciting when things like this happen!

Anyways,  I am looking forward to tomorrow’s weigh-in!!!!! Wish me luck!

Finally got my Polar working!!!

I finally got my Polar heart rate monitor working and I am so happy. I burned more calories than I thought yesterday and today in Zumba class!!!! See? This is from the class last night at 6pm. It was my second class there so the moves were more familiar. It was the same instructor from Monday so I was a little more sure of myself which made me do more high impact steps when I felt comfortable. It was great not feeling the pressure to be high impact the whole time while still being able to enjoy myself, enjoy the choreography and burn major calories.

This next pic was from this morning’s class. Different instructor so I was more hesitant obviously and I was more low/medium impact. I’m so glad to be dancing again! 

Still, 587 calories is not bad at all! I think anyone trying to get in shape and improve their fitness should invest in one of these. I got mine for $80 in 2011 and it has been a godsend. I stopped using it when I wasn’t working out for weight loss at a time when I was where I needed to be and sure of what my body was doing. All I had to do to get started on it again was change the batteries. There are other monitors available from Polar besides the FT7. Some even run for around $30 to $50 less. I wanted this particular one because it syncs up to my Mac. It’s just motivating because you have accountability and you get to see how your hard work pays off. The Polar asks your age, sex, weight, height and other questions when you are setting it up so it is very accurate. You just have to make sure you adjust your weight every 10 pounds because the heavier you are the more you burn at a certain heart rate and you don’t want your numbers to be misleading. The strap also has a transmitter that you snap into place before putting it around your chest. The closer to your heart the better obviously. Mine usually sits right underneath my sports bra at the base of my breastbone.

Anyway, I hope everyone else out there is having an as productive week as mine.

Till later…

Mimi

Day 23

Great day! Feeling amazing! Dragged myself to Zumba and it was worth it! Update coming tomorrow! :-) 23 days. Wow.

Please check heart rate transmitter!!!

Yeah, that’s the message I got on my Polar 7 calories in to my tennis workout. :-( I thought the only problem was with the receiver (watch) so that’s the only battery I changed. I guess it’s harder to tell when the transmitter needs a battery replacement since the receiver actually goes dead and the transmitter (strap part) doesn’t have a battery meter or usage indicator. When I got home I thought “good thing I bought 2 batteries the other night”. Well no, turns out the transmitter takes a larger battery than the watch part so I guess its back to Radio Shack for me.

In spite of that disappointment, I still managed to have a good work out. We moved on to volleying and actually learned to serve the right way. Pretty productive. Hopefully I can gauge my calories on the tennis court next week. :-)

Day 22

Stuck to my product allotment today. Nothing unusual there. :-) I had a pretty good day, very uneventful. Just getting ready for my Tennis class. Hope my heart rate monitor shows some great calories burned. Again, it’s not a super intense workout so I would be happy with 250 calories burned at least. Anything less and I think I will have to add a run on to my tennis workouts and I really hope I don’t have to do that! :-)

Day 21! End of Week 3 of fasting!

Well today is the end of Week 3. OMG! I cannot believe that I have made it this far without eating anything but Optifast products! Wow. I feel great and I had a good weigh-in tonight: 4.4 pounds lost this week! I am at a total of 16.8 pounds which means that I am almost at 20 pounds lost. My goal was 80 pounds. To think that I could potentially be at 25% of my goal by the end of the 4th week makes me super happy. I do believe that this program works and I do believe that it can be forever – you just have to embrace the changes, embrace the new lifestyle, let go of the old habits and just truly want to lose the weight and keep it off. This is not a quick fix. You can’t go back to your old habits afterwards. Does that mean you will never be able to eat a rack of ribs again? No! It means you can but you will have to make other modifications that day or that week. You will have to work out everyday for more than just an hour or modify your diet accordingly. You can’t just expect to be able to eat whatever with no exercise and be ok. For me, I can live with that.

My goal this week is to work out for 6 days out of the week. My tentative schedule is:

Thursday – Tennis

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday – Zumba

Tuesday – Tennis

Hopefully with this kind of dedication I can hit my 20 pound mark which means a weight loss of 3.2 pounds at next week’s weigh-in. I think I can, I think I can… Wish me luck! :-)

Move over Venus & Serena…

…make way for ME!!!! :-) Yep! I started my tennis lessons today! Classes will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6pm for the next 3 weeks. There are 3 other people in my group – a couple and an older lady. We worked on our grip, forehand and backhand swings, drop hitting and rallying. It was a pretty good class. I broke a sweat which was great and I had fun. AGAIN I wished that I had my heart rate monitor SO after class I went over to RadioShack and luckily they had the elusive battery (CR 1632) in stock. I bought 2 for good measure and, after all the horror stories I read online about buying bad batteries, I decided to change the battery in the store. It worked. I’m happy. Can’t wait for Thursday to see how much I burn. If it’s at least 250 calories then I’m SUPER happy. For Zumba, I’d be happy with 450.

I am actually glad that I set that goal for myself this week. 4 workouts is a big jump from none or one or two but in the long run, I know I need to work out hard now to lose weight and later to maintain the weight my goal weight. In my Weight Loss Management Class we talked about working up to an hour a day everyday. That is supposed to be our goal. We have to take baby steps but ultimately that is where we are expected to be by the end of the first 16 weeks (the complete meal replacement/fasting part). Considering that we only have 12 weeks left, that’s really not much when you think about the progressions that have to be made. I see myself having to try 6 times a week and hoping that I like it and can deal with it. Then making adjustments if needed if I can’t keep up that kind of activity level. THEN adding on 1 more day when I get comfortable for a total of 7 and that is a little daunting. For me it is mainly mental and I just can’t imagine working out 7 times a day RIGHT NOW. Hopefully by Program Week 17 I should be ready. But even with just this goal for 4 times this week I can feel changes in how I feel, how I sleep, the way my clothes feel etc. so even if I get another 2 pound weight loss only, I will be ok.

 

Day 20

I feel great today! Last night’s workout was really good. I’m looking forward to the end of the week when I can go back to Zumba class. I hope it is as good as it was tonight.

Day 19 – Monday 2.0

Well I posted earlier about how I had set a crazy goal of 4 days of working out. I know – it’s not THAT crazy but for me, I haven’t done that since my knee was in full effect and I was on my Zumba craze. Speaking of Zumba – at about 4pm this afternoon it hit me on what I could do to workout for the evening. Yesterday, I purchased a Groupon for a local Zumba center that has classes everyday at multiple times each day. The offer was $25 for 20 classes to be used up by July of this year. Well, I jumped on it. And for some reason it took a while for me to remember that I had it and could use it now! So I did. I went to the location and danced for a solid hour. The instructors are not crazy hard and they are medium impact which is perfect! I was dripping sweat within 5 minutes of starting which is probably due in part to the fact that the class was located in a warehouse. But it was great. Only thing is that I wish I had had my heart rate monitor. I have a Polar FT7 and I love it but the battery died. Before the class I ran into the local Wal-Mart to see if they had the batteries in stock but they didn’t so I went without it. I am determined to find that battery before the next class!

Great day, great workout!!!!