Day 12

So today has been a BUSY day. I woke up at 5 and ate my breakfast at 5:15. It was carrot & mozzarella cheese quiche with cantaloupe. I have no idea what I was thinking ordering that. I really have a hard time with eggs. I ate it, but didn't enjoy it. I had team weightloss this morning. Typically on Friday's the class goes to the nutrition center for the first 30 minutes, but I skipped that and did cardio while they were at class. So here is my schedule for the first hour (30 mins was team wl).
TEAM WEIGHTLOSS

• 3 miles on bike
• 10 mins - 16 floors on stepper *****
• 40.20 mins on elliptical
• 50 squats
• 20 pull ups
• 20 push ups

TRAINING

• Techno Gym (TG) Total Abs - 2 sets of 25 - 65 lbs. alternating with
• 30 seconds of high lifts - 2 sets
• TG Ab Crunch - 2 sets of 25 - 40 lbs. alternating with
• side leg lifts 2 sets - 15 each side
• 30 sec. plank x2
• Precor Flat Tricep Ext. 2 sets of 30 - 20lbs.
• TG Leg Press - 2 sets of 15 - 100 lbs.
• Life Fitness Leg Ext. 1 set of 15 - 25lbs - I don't like this machine
• TG Leg Ext 1 set of 15 - 25 lbs. I like this one
• TG Seated Leg Curl 2 sets of 15 - 50 lbs.
• Cybex Calf - 2 sets of 15 - 90 lbs.
• I's & Y's - 2 sets of 20 - 5 lbs.
• Weight Bar Bicep Curl - 3 sets of 20 - set 1 - 12 lbs., sets 2&3 - 15 lbs.

I left the gym and went right to the school to volunteer. Then I ate my snack on my way home around 8:45am, creamy banana cheese cake. I came home, showered and left with Grace to the doctor. She has a severe ear infection. JOY! From there we went to G.Belle's house and ate lunch there. I got Grace McDonald's and I had shredded turkey pastrami & pepper jack cheese panini on whole wheat ciabatta with sauteed bell pepper. This was really good and hearty. I had it around 12:00. Grace & I stayed there going through stuff until 2. Then we came home around 3 and I had my mini veggie egg rolls with peanut sauce. All I can say is DELICIOUS!!! I ended up eating my dinner early at 4 which was grilled chicken with spicy mango sauce, roasted acorn squash and sauteed shitake mushrooms. I ate early because I took the kids to go and see Alice in Wonderland. What an incredible movie. The artistry was phenomenal. POPCORN, I must admit, I ate some. OHHHH!!! That's what I get for going to the movies with my kids. But it wasn't much, just a few pieces. This is the first time and I pray, the last time I will cheat. But I told myself from day 1, I would be honest in all I say and do with this. So there you go! Maybe some extra cardio tomorrow. :) I've worked out for 6 days straight. I really have to push myself tomorrow. I'm a little tired right now. It's 8:00 and I'm headed to bed early. At least I hope I am. I've had some insomnia lately. I just need SLEEP. I MIGHT just take a Tylenol PM tonight. I'm physically exhausted. I get my EMR & RMR on Sunday at 11am. So I have to fast for 12 hours before the test and i cannot exercise for 24 hours before the test. That means I will have to get up early and exercise in the morning before 11am. I guess that's it. Talk to you tomorrow.

Day 11

It's been quite a day. My youngest, Grace, has been SO SICK today. My heart just goes out to her. She woke up at 5:15am with double pink eye, fever, cough, congested. Just the works. Now this afternoon she has been screaming for about an hour with ear pain. THANK GOODNESS Jeremy is here because I can't handle that kind of crying. It's so unusual for her to carry on like that, but Jeremy said he used to get severe ear infections and the pain is unbearable. Poor baby girl!

I woke up this morning at 5. Why, I don't know. This is my day I can sleep in, but when Grace came down, I felt ok about waking up so early. So I made a good breakfast for Emily & Tyler and then I ate mine with them around 7am. I had a fruit salad with watermelon, blackberry, apple, orange, red grapes & coconut ricotta cheese. Refreshing! Then I went to the gym around 8:15. I had a GREAT workout. This is what I did:

WORKOUT

• Lifetime Elliptical 20 mins - 1.4 miles - interval HR training
• Cybex 10 mins
• Stair Climber - 10 mins STRAIGHT - 16 floors - I was SO PROUD of myself for this. The longest I was able to stay on before was 3.23 mins. WOO HOO FOR ME!!! Then I got back on and did another 5 mins. - 8 floors
• I's & Y's - 3 sets of 20 - 5lbs. These are hard for me to do, but I did them all. I need to really strengthen my shoulders
• Lifetime Fitness Shoulder Press - 4 sets - 15 - 10lbs. OW
• Nautilus Abs - 25 - 65lbs - I had some serious involuntary spasms happen at 24 & 25
• Precor Incline Press - 4set - 15 - 10lbs. OW
• Techno Gym Total Abs - Crunches - 3 sets of 25 - 1st set 55lbs, 2nd & 3rd sets 65 lbs.
• 1 hour Yoga

This was the first time EVER that I took a yoga lesson. It was interesting. I was able to do everything except stand on one foot. I think I would have enjoyed it more if my shoulders didn't hurt so bad while doing it. The only good thing with yoga is that my legs are super flexible, making the poses easier. I will be taking this class every Thursday.

I ate my snack on my way home at 11:45. It was a delicious Peach Muffin. Then I ate my lunch at 1:00 and it was Mushroom Pizza - Yes, I said PIZZA. My MOST favorite food in the world, PIZZA!!! And let me tell you, HEAVENLY!!! I had my snack at 3:00 an it was a sliced asian pear with ricotta cheese and honey roasted cashews. I'm amazed at how often they serve ricotta cheese. I LOVE IT!!! For dinner I had lean turkey meatballs with thai ginger chili sauce (nummy) with chipotle spiced whipped sweet potato & grilled asparagus. I ate that at 5:30. I think I'm getting pink eye from Grace so I am putting drops in my eyes and going to bed early. I have team weightloss tomorrow and so I need to be up at 5. Goodnight!

Day 10 - Part 2

I ended up eating my snack at 3:30 and my dinner at 6:15. So I tried a few new foods today. Feta cheese, LOVELY! Spinach Couscous, Delicious! Mascarpone, Heavenly! I'm loving adventuring out into new tastes. Surprisingly, they are all good.

I took the kids to dance and then brought Grace home after her class. Jeremy will pick up Emily & Tyler for me tonight.

I feel really good about the food and then exercise so far. I think I mentioned before my all or nothing attitude. If I'm going to do something, then I give 1000% to whatever I'm doing. You can ask any of my football family. :):):) Or my own family for that matter. I always look at the whole picture, the little details that I would want done. So I am looking at this weightloss journey with holistic eyes. I'm really looking at the smallest details. For example, I'm being extremely conscious of my water intake, of spacing my meals out every 3 hours or so. Of doing minimum of an hour of exercise a day, really attempting to get in 2 hours a day. And yet, I still think in my head, is it enough. Am I doing enough to lose the weight. What else can I do? Should I be doing 3 hours a day? Should I drink even more water? Should I be taking supplements? What more can I do to guarantee my weightloss? I feel that writing this blog and doing my video diary is really helping me, but what else? I feel so positive with all that I am doing and then these little doubts start creeping in and I start questioning myself, those questions of what more can I do. I have an appointment tomorrow to learn about the bodybugg system that I bought to track my daily calories burned. I have an appointment on Sunday at 11:00am to get my EMR & my RMR so that we are as accurate as we can get with the calorie burn. I had my bloodwork done last week. I'm starting a yoga class next week. It's all these little things I think of and obsess about. I make sure when I'm working out that I stay in zone 3 (the optimal burning zone) and interval train into zone 4 throughout my workouts. I think there are so many factors into losing this weight and I am really trying to figure it all out. I am having so many realizations come into my life in looking at myself and the reasons why I let myself get so heavy. I finally feel worthy to accept great things into my life. I feel so happy all the time. My soul is at peace and I am grateful for that. I actually can say that I love who I am and who I am becoming. I'm beyond grateful to all my friends who are supporting me, loving me, & cheering me on through this journey. Thank you!

Day 10

Oh man! I am sore. My arms this time. I woke up at 5am, ate breakfast at 5:15, which consisted of Strawberry Stuffed Whole Wheat French Toast with honeydew and cinnamon apple yogurt. It came with syrup, but I didn't use the syrup. I just dipped the french toast in the yogurt. NUMMY! Then I was off the gym by 5:30.

Team Weightloss

• Lifetime Elliptical - 53 minutes - 3.05 miles - Mark has us doing interval training with our Heart Rate. So we stay in zone 3 then he'll have us increase the intensity for 1-3 minutes so we get our HR up to zone 4 and then we come back down to zone 3. It's a great cardio workout. I highly recommend you purchasing a Polar Watch. I don't know what I would do without it. I wear a Heart Rate monitor the entire work out and it's perfect!
• 20 squats
• 30 second plank - which BTW my body started shaking 10 seconds into it, but I did it!
• 30 lunges

Training with Joe

• Lifetime Dual Adjustable Pulley (LDAP) - Standing Lat Pulldown - 17.5 lbs. So with this exercise Joe connected the straight bar to the dual pulley and then he had me put my arms straight at shoulder level and push down. We did 3 sets of 20 alternating with:
• LDAP - Assisted Push Ups. So with this he brought the straight bar down and put the weight all the way down to 97.5lbs so the bar wouldn't move. Then he had me do push ups. 3 sets of 20. Well let me tell you, at first I said "are you kidding me, you want ME to do pushups." And he said "Yes, you can do it". Of course he was right. Then on the 2nd set he lowered the bar and I said "are you trying to kill me?" and Joe said "I'm trying to teach you how to live". Touche Joe, Touche! Set 3, even lower. I amazed myself today.
• Bent Over Row - 3 sets of 20 - 25 lbs 1st set, 20 lbs set 2&3. alternating with:
• Ball Holds - 30 seconds. So for this, I hold a big ball and squeeze it on both sides for 30 seconds while Joe try to knock it out of my hands. I HATE THIS EXERCISE. :) So Joe was nice enough to change it for me for the last 2 sets.
• So we went to a Bungee Press. This is where I had the red bungee around me and all I had to do was press out as fast as I could for 30 seconds. Sounds easy right? WRONG! The whole time I'm attempting to do these presses Joe is holding on to the bungee giving resistance. OHHHH!!! I made it though!
• Then we went to the massage table and he had me lay face down, put my arms straight over my head and then had me raise both my arms and legs at the same time. REALLY!!! He had me do 5 sets of 10. Oh, my abs!
• Lastly he had me do I's with a 5 lb weight. 2 sets of 25. Phew, I made it through my WO!

As I walked down the stairs to go to the locker room, I felt invincible. I was so proud of myself and this workout. It was hard, but GREAT!!! I finally feel like my body is making changes.

I came out of the gym at 9:00 and ate my snack which was coconut cheesecake. Seriously delicious. Then I went to the school and volunteered and now I'm home. It's 11:30am and I will probably eat lunch around 12:00. For lunch I am having Feta Cheese Salad with Fire Roasted Bell Pepper, Asparagus, Sun-Dried Tomato, Endive & Radicchio Lettuce Mix with Creamy Balsamic Dressing. My next snack is Grilled Pineapple Rings Topped with Raspberry Infused Mascarpone. For dinner I am having a Beef Kebab with Peppercorn Brandy Sauce with Sweet Potato Hash and Spinach Couscous. Here are the pictures! Enjoy!

Day 9 - Part 2

It's 5:00 and I am just now eating my snack. It is SO GOOD!!! It take exactly like the chicken pesto pizza they make at Lifetime Fitness. Weird, but delicious. So typically I would be sitting at the dance studio right now, but Grace came home sick and Emily is still sick. So being home has allowed me to get more laundry done and some housework done. After I posted the last blog I prepared a pork roast for my family and now I'm about to do the side dishes for their meal. I pre-planned a menu for the kids for the next week and so far so good. I'm really trying to cook just what they will eat so we don't have any leftovers. I did good yesterday. They had tacos and literally, we have no leftovers except for tortilla shells which I can use to make some snacks for them. The pork roast came from Sam's Club, so you know it's big. I cut it up into 3 sections and froze 2 of them. So now I have 3 meals out of one roast. Woo Hoo for me. I'm surprised that I'm still able to cook for my family, but eat only my meals. My kids are my food cops. They ask me every single day what I am eating, in fact they all have tasted one thing or another and loved it. They ALWAYS ask me when they walk in the door how my exercise has gone for the day, what did I do, what did I eat, how I am feeling. I LOVE MY KIDS. They are my biggest cheer leaders in all of this. In fact the few times when I made myself tea they yelled at me saying it's not part of my diet. When I assure them, I can drink tea. They always say, you are only allowed to drink water or propel. It's so funny, but I need my tea. Especially since I don't have my chai latte from Starbucks.

We stopped at Target on the way home from Lifetime yesterday to pick up some produce and meat and I am amazed at how much less money I spend now that I am not buying any processed foods. I always thought it was more expensive to eat healthy, but honestly now that I only buy fresh foods and not all the CRAP food I usually buy, it's cheaper. I am making a vegetable medley for the kids tonight. I hope they eat it. They have to get used to eating healthy too. I have completely cut back their sugar intake and crap food intake since I threw it all out and I'm hoping their taste buds will change and that they will start liking the healthier foods. Emily & Tyler both had an apple with peanut butter today, so I was happy for their choice. Grace had water with a few saltine crackers since she is sick. Poor little girl. So I'm hoping and praying we all have a positive change in my journey.

Two things are getting me through all of this and they are water and Eclipse Gum. OMG - I would die if I didn't have my gum to chew. I ALWAYS chew gum when I work out. I don't know why, but I can't work out unless I am chewing gum. Then if I ever get a craving I pop in my gum and the craving is gone.

One more thing that is on my mind. So I was thinking about my weightloss and how I only lost 3 pounds and how is it possible that I only lost 3 lbs. Then I thought of my weigh in. I weighed in on February 12th but didn't start the diet and exercise until February 22nd. The day of the 12 was when my sweet Grandma Belle was given 12 hours to live. She ended up living until Tuesday the 16th. Then we had her funeral on the 19th and I started on the 22nd but I never re-weighed myself on the 22nd. It never crossed my mind and I'm sure it never crossed Joe's mind. So I wonder if I possible gained weight during those 10 days before I started and we never new it. Which wouldn't surprise me if I did because when I was with Grandma those last few days of her life I ordered in almost every meal. And I was snacking at all hours and my stress levels were at their maximum. So if I had to guess, I started this diet heavier than 300 lbs. Who knows though. It still bothers me. I'm anxious to see what next Monday brings. I'm just going to take it one day at a time. With that I'm signing off for the night. Goodnight to all.

I had to come on and edit this post. So I just fed my kids dinner and I cannot believe it, Grace ate and liked the vegetable medley. Seriously, am I in the right house and is this my daughter. My prayers are being answered. Thank you!

Day 9

On Tuesdays & Thursdays I am scheduling my workouts with Joe to be a little later in the morning so I can get the kids off to school. Jeremy does that job on M,W,F since I leave the house at 5:30 on those days for team weightloss. I had the alarm set for 6:30am which is perfect timing to get Emily & Tyler up, fed and out to the bus by 7:20. This is the day I can sleep in. But did I, NO!!! My lovely body woke me up at 5:30 this morning. UGH!!! Why oh why! So I got up, did laundry as usual. Got all my water bottles filled for my workout. Took our dog out. Got my food, took pictures, got ready for the day and then woke up the kids, actually Gracie came downstairs at 6:15, which is shocking since I typically have to wake her up at 7:30. I think going to bed at 6:45 last night helped. :):):)Swimming wore her out yesterday.

These next two weeks are HUGE for them. They take their ISAT tests and I want to make sure they all eat a healthy breakfast daily before these tests. Which for Emily is really no big deal, but for Tyler it will determine if he gets into Northwestern next year for summer school. He just made it this year with his ISAT scores. I'm SO PROUD of him. We still don't know if Emily made it or not. She qualifies with her SAT scores. Which she took on Feb. 20, so we don't have those results back yet. Yes, I did say SAT and yes she is only in 6th grade. We were blessed with a VERY intelligent daughter.

For breakfast today I had Coconut cream and walnut oatmeal. It was delicious but I started eating it around 6:00 and it took me over an hour to eat it. SO MUCH FOOD! It's still freaking me out that I get filled up so fast. I really had no energy this morning. I was VERY TIRED. I moved around slowly. I was HAPPY, but very tired. NO ENERGY. I had NO DESIRE to get in my car and go and workout. NONE! But I still went. About 10 minutes after I left I put on my Black Eyed Peas CD and got some energy from that. By the time I was done working out I had SO MUCH energy. It's weird how that happens.

Workout with Joe

This workout was even more intense than yesterday. At least for me it was. It ended up being a HUGE visual breakthrough day for me. I don't know if I ever talked about mirrors before, but I HATE mirrors. I can't stand looking at myself ever! I just get so disgusted. I have never told this to Joe before and guess what he makes me do today, yep, workout in front of a mirror and watch myself. I was screaming inside, "NO, DON'T MAKE ME LOOK AT MYSELF". I HATE how I look. "PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME DO THIS". I never verbalized this to Joe, but it's what was going through my head. So he's making me stand in front of this wall of mirrors and watch myself do these exercises and watch my form and at first I would look at myself and just want to throw up by my reflection. I see my fat, flabby arms, my huge belly, my fat face. It was horrendous. I had so many self loathing thoughts go through my head. How on earth did I let myself get to the point I did. How did I gain so much weight. How did I just not care. So as I stood there thinking all these just horrendous negative thoughts I got to my 4th set of doing these squats and lifting these damn weights above my head. And I looked at myself. Really looked at myself for the first time in a long time. What did I see you ask? Of course I saw this 297 lb woman, but I also saw that I am a good person. That I am loving and kind, that I truly have unconditional love for people, that I am worthy of losing weight, that I have spent my whole life taking care of everyone else and that I am so proud of myself for taking care of me. I saw the skinny me, through all that fat and all those negative thoughts, I saw me and I am beautiful. I am loved. I am worthy of every good thing this life has to offer. I am blessed. This was such an emotional moment for me. I'm so proud of myself. So here are the stats on my workout today.

• Elliptical 20 mins before workout with Joe
• Squat & Press Up - 4 sets of 20 - 5 lbs in each hand. To explain this exercise better I stood in front of a bench, in front of the mirrored wall, had weights in each hand with the weights at chest level. Then I would sit down on the bench and stand up immediately and push the weights up in the air until my arms were fully extended straight up. It doesn't sound hard, but it was.
• Romanian Dead Lift - 4 sets of 20 - 40 lb barbell
• Down & Out - 4 sets of 15 - 2.5 lbs. In this exercise you put your arms up at a 90 degree angle and you are holding the weights in your hand, then you just move them straight down until they are parrallel with your shoulder. I've had total shoulder reconstruction on both shoulders and so we are really working on building up the muscle around the shoulder. This exercise just burned them. It's all good. I need them to be as strong as I can get them.
• Nautilus Abdominal machine 2 sets of 20 - 65 lbs. So this time Joe had me do a count of 3 to get to the crunch and then I had to hold for 3 and then go back for 3. LET ME TELL YOU, INVOLUNTARY SPASMS galore. I LOVED IT!!!!
• So then Joe wanted me to get back on the elliptical for the last few minutes but I said no, lets go on the stair climber. I am determined to conquer that machine. So I did 4 sets of 5 floors. I was able to do 26 steps a floor in 3:05. Which is 18 seconds better than last week and my heart rate never go above 162. Which last week my HR was getting up to 182 every time. So I would say that is an improvement. Hooray!

Then I went into my sanctuary (steam room) for 6 minutes and then showered and got ready for my day. I had energy and felt so good about my workout.

Shopping

When I left the club I went and bought myself a package of socks and two new t-shirts. Now if you know me, you know this is HUGE. I never buy myself anything. I can buy for anyone but myself. Although if I'm at a craft show I can spend a plethora of money. But even that is for my house, not really for me. I have been wearing Jeremy's white socks forever, he only wears black socks and occasionally purple ones. :) Well, I am down to my last pair and they have holes in them so it was time. I need to overcome my feelings about spending money on myself. On the rare occasion when I do, I feel good about it. But again, it is rare. In fact I've had a $200 gift certificate to Mario Tricoci's for a while now and I haven't even used that. Why, because it's hard for me to treat myself. Don't ask me, I don't know. It's something I have to overcome. But I went in to buy socks and I ended up buying two t-shirts to workout in, so that was an accomplishment. I love it!

I brought my snack with me to the gym but I didn't eat it until 12:00, (it was coconut chocolate pudding), when I first started writing my blog. It's now 1:11, man it takes time to get my thoughts down. I'm about to go and eat my lunch which is a grilled steak with a salad made up of romaine lettuce, tomato, red onion & horseradish dressing. I might have to eat it plain because I really don't like horseradish. For my afternoon snack it's going to be whole wheat chicken tortellini with fresh basil pesto and for dinner I'm having roasted pork meatballs with sun dried tomato pesto with steamed sugar snaps and grilled portabella mushrooms. Sound nummy! I will try and blog again later. Have a great day!

Day 8

3 lb weightloss for week one. I expected more, but am happy with my results. It seems that my body is finally adjusting to the food and exercise. I feel like I am doing all the right things in my life. It feels great to be able to get up early and exercise and then get on with my day. I really like starting my day off like this. I woke up at 5am. Left for the gym at 5:30 and ate half of my breakfast on the way to the gym. I had a fruit salad with blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, oranges, watermelon & blueberry ricotta cheese. You SO need to try ricotta cheese with fruit in it. DELICIOUS!!!

Team Weightloss

For team weightloss today we did 35 minutes on the elliptical and he had us do interval training of 4 minutes zone 3, 1 minute zone 4. It was good. Then he put us on the cybex machine. I had never been on that before, it REALLY works your butt out. We did 15 minutes on the cybex. Once we were done Mike asked for everyones burn (we all wear POLAR watches). So everyone was over 700 burn and I was at 323. It didn't make sense. So Mike looked at my watch and the VO2 number was set WAY TOO LOW. So he adjusted it and it's working better now. I am going in on Sunday to get my EMR & RMR. You need to fast for 12 hours before this test and you cannot workout for 24 hours prior to the test. So Saturday will be my recovery day this week and then I will go in on Sunday, take the test, and workout. So this whole last week I have burned more calories than I thought. I'm anxious for my results so I can more accurately track my calorie burn each day.

Training with JOE

My session with Joe today was brutal. Honestly, we are in week two and I KNOW each training session will be harder and harder. It seems like it's easy stuff that we are doing, but for a 297lb woman, it's not easy. :):):) Here's what we did.

• Freemotion Cable Flys - 3 sets of 20 - 15 lbs alternating each set with 20 squats.
• Freemotion Cable squat & row - 3 sets of 20 - 60lbs. alternating with
• Freemotion Cable High Pulls - 3 sets of 20 - 20 lbs. (these burned my shoulders)
• Yellow Band Y pulls 3 sets of 15 alternating with
• Wall Shoulder Press - 3 sets of 15
• Cable Rotations - 3 sets of 25 - holding the smaller ball in front of me - 12.5lbs
• Drawing In - abs. - 3 sets of 25 (very embarrasing doing these)
• Roll Out

I had a talk with Joe about Abs and why I LOVE doing ab workouts. For me, when I feel my abs contract and they start firming up and going into spasms it makes me feel skinnier. When you are this big there is not much that can make you feel skinnier, but working on my abs does just that. It's a total mental thing. I feel my abs tight, I feel skinnier. I know, weird, but true. I feel like my body is figuring things out for itself. I'm not as sore as I was last Monday. Last Monday I couldn't even walk. Today, I feel sore, but still able to walk. It's all good. After my WO I spent 7 minutes in my "sanctuary" (steam room). I can't begin to tell you how good it is for me to go into that steam room. I LOVE IT. I had my 1st snack at 11:00 and it was a peach cheesecake.

I came home picked up the kids since they have off today for Pulaski Day. I took them back to the gym for swimming. We all ate lunch at 1:00 there by the pool. I had a California Style Wrap with Avocado, Baby Lettuce, Roasted Turkey, Monterey-Jack Cheese & fresh chunky salsa. The tortilla was a sun-dried tomato tortilla. It was such a good BIG lunch. I love feeding my kids at the gym because it's HEALTHY and cheap. Seriously, a kids lunch is only $3. LOVE IT!!! My 2nd snack for today was pork stuffed mushrooms. I ate that at 3:30. So good! Today has been a great day so far. I'm tired now, but that's ok. I'm going to post my dinner picture now in case I fall asleep before I blog again. For dinner I'm having beef fillet with BBQ bourbon sauce with red bell pepper orzo and steamed broccoli rapini. I plan on eating around 6:30. Goodnight!