New hair, new me

Wow, I didn't realize that it's been a while since updating my blog. Saturday one of my girlfriends and I went to the gym to get a little workout in for the day. Unfortunately neither one of us was having a good day and didn't really feel like being there. Moms, you know what it is like when a child just drives you so crazy that you want to scream!

Anyway, we get to the gym and do the typical routine on the treadmill, but I notice that my leg and lower back is starting to hurt, but I keep on going. Once the treadmill is done I decide to skip the bike and the elliptical because of my back/leg and we go walk around the track. A few laps later we decide to call it quits...which is just fine because by this time I was really in pain. Once I get home I decided I needed to take one of my left-over vicodin from when I had my carpal tunnel surgery.

Fast forward to Monday, I had my PFP #2 with my trainer at the gym and he decided to change my work out routine. I don't have it memorized yet because I haven't actually done it yet. But I am now doing a new, more challenging routine on the treadmill and the elliptical, as well as the bike. In addition to this he has incorporated weight-lifting. I am actually pretty happy about this because I need to be pushed a little harder.

My weigh ins are on Mondays, but I couldn't resist and weighed myself (unofficially) on Friday. I was down 2 more pounds! Talk about excited! Well... then... Sunday I had two BBQ's to go to. I really, really tried to be good and make good choices but those darn cupcakes and huge chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies were SCREAMING out for me! I broke down and ate some... in addition to a big, fat brat, potato chips, WATER!, and a few slices of watermelon. Oh, I guess I should say that I had McDonalds for dinner Saturday night, at like 9:30. After my major oink-fest of a weekend, I gained back a pound. Still, I guess 1 pound is still pretty good in a week.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I did get my hair cut today as a little incentive/prize for losing 12 pounds. It is pretty short, but I think I'll like it once I get used to it. Here are my before and after pictures (and don't mind my after pictures because the flash was too close to my face!)

Before:



After:



Viola! There I am. I can't believe how different I look with short hair. Hope it doesn't take me too long to get used to it!

Skinny Mistie... here I come!

After eating pizza for dinner on Tuesday night, I knew that I really needed to step up my workout to counter-act the stuff I just put into my body. However, when I got to the Y on Wednesday, I was sluggish and didn't really feel like doing much of a workout. I didn't complete everything that I was planning on, but I did get a bit of a workout in. I did my regular routine on the bike (5/20/5) and the elliptical (15 @ 150 rpm) but I didn't get on the treadmill, nor did I do my walking lunges. Needless to say I felt guilty that I cheated myself out of getting healthy.

Today I went to the Y and yet again, I didn't complete my whole workout. I did my treadmill (5/15/5) but I happened to up it a little bit from my normal routine. Instead of doing a warm up and cool down at 2.7 and 0 incline and step it up to 3.1 and a 1% incline, I bumped it up a bit to a 3.1 and 0 incline w/u & c/d and a 3.5 and 1.5% incline. I, again, didn't do my walking lunges nor did I do the bike. I did, however, after lunch do my Slim in 6 "Start It Up" dvd. 24.49 minutes of squats, lunges, arm curls, push ups, crunches, obliques and more... and I was able to do it ALL!! Hahaha... although I did feel like I was going to pass out 5 minutes into it. It's amazing how energized I feel now though! I feel like I could go run a marathon!!! (ok, maybe not run... perhaps watch!) lol

As of Monday I am down 11 pounds. So to reward myself I am going to get a new haircut! I'm going to go for something drastic, cute, fun, yet easy to style. If I'm brave enough I'll post a picture of what I look like afterwards. I wonder if there is a hairstyle that can make a person look less "fluffy"? lol

Monday, Monday

The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!

-Marvin Phillips

Oh isn't that the truth? And UMPH is what I've been giving it!

I'm sure my posts are starting to get a bit tiresome and boring because I don't really have anything new to report. It's just the same report day after day. Get up and go to the gym and work out, feel better about myself and come home to my chaotic household. Tis my life, and I love it!

Not to sound nasty or anything, but wow, did I ever work up a sweat today! I lost my towel somewhere between the bike and the elliptical and I didn't realize it until I was ready to wipe my face and the back of my neck off while on the elliptical. I was on a roll so I wasn't about to stop to go find my towel, so I just kept on going. I must say that it is a good thing that there isn't anyone there that I would want to impress because, let me tell you, I was not the picture of beauty. I didn't think that it was possible to sweat as much as I did! I don't think that is human!

I did my normal routine, Bike, elliptical, treadmill and my walking lunges. Of course I weighed myself too. Guess what? Down another 2 pounds!! Yeee haawww!! (I know, sounding a bit hillbilly-ish).

I have challenges going on all around me. Hopefully I'll be able to remember them all!

1. Weight-loss challenge on my Mom's message board (% weight lost)
2. Weight-loss challenge with my inlaws (% weight lost...reward is a bag of cheese curds... although doesn't that defeat the purpose?)
3. Show Taylor what an Abs 6-pack looks like on myself... one year from June 13
4. To be able to run 3 miles before the end of summer

#4 is a challenge that I've given to myself. I really want to start running again. I miss the way that running made me feel. Such a feeling of accomplishment and empowerment. It's like, if I can run 3.1 miles (and I did it as a competition in high school) and still be standing, I can do anything! I would always laugh when people would ask why I would willingly run... for fun. :) It is just one of those things that brought me so much joy! Oh man do I miss it.

My Weight Chart:

What is wrong with me?!

I don't know what is going on. Mentally it seems that I am losing it. I went to the gym today and had a pretty good workout, but during every single exercise I was trying to think of a reason why I should stop. Maybe I'm just "off" because for some reason I just seem a bit down today. I have so many things running through my mind the last few days, and some things have me worried. Hopefully I'll wake up in the morning with newfound dedication, desire and enthusiasm!

One good thing is that I stepped on the scale today and I am down 2 more pounds! That brings me down under the 200 pound mark!! Woo hooo!!! 199 baby! Monday is my official weigh in so hopefully I won't gain back the weight this weekend.

Wednesday I saw and talked to my coach, Craig, at the Y. I told him about my daughter Taylor asking me what a 6-pack was. He has challenged me to show her in exactly 1 year what a 6-pack looks like... on me! I'm kinda scared about that because that is so much pressure. I have never had a 6-pack, even when I was in shape! I'm going to do my darnedest to fulfill this challenge. Craig... you're on!

Exercise:
Bike:
5 minutes- resistance 1/ 50 rpm
20 minutes- resistance 3/ 60-70 rpm
5 minutes- resistance 1/ 50 rpm

Elliptical:
15 minutes- resistance 1/ ramp 1/ 150 rpm

Treadmill:
5 minutes- speed 2.7/ 0 ramp
15 minutes- speed 3.1/ 1 ramp
5 minutes- speed 2.7/ 0 ramp

2 sets of walking lunges


Food:
Bfast: Low GI oatmeal
Snack: 1/2 pb sandwich on whole grain bread
Lunch: Smart Ones cheese pizza
Snack: Sugar-free 100 Calorie Jello
Dinner: Smart Ones Enchilada
Snack: none

Oye

Well, I didn't make it to the gym today but I did go for a nice walk. I feel pretty guilty now that I think about it because I feel like my enthusiasm is starting to dwindle. I know what I want to achieve, and I continually visualize it, yet there seem to be days that there is a roadblock in my way and I let that roadblock defeat me, little by little. I guess it is good that I realize that because now I can fight it.

Ok, Saturday is a new day.... Start fresh with a new outlook!

Exercise:
Walk 2.99 miles/ 25 minutes/ 3173 steps


Food:
Breakfast: Part of a green apple
Snack: 1/2 peanut butter sandwich
Lunch: Smart Ones frozen Enchilada Dinner
Snack: None
Dinner: Oven Roasted Chicken (with whole-wheat flour)
Snack: 100 calorie Chocolate Pudding

Same stuff, different day

Nothing much to report since my last post. I'm still going to the gym every morning and working out between 1-2 hours. I keep telling myself that I'm going to do one of my YBB videos later in the day but it hasn't happened yet. Even though I do have an increase in energy, I still get pretty tired before the day is over. Usually anywhere between 1-3 hours after I work out I am ready to crash! Hopefully this is only temporary and will go away the longer I'm into my new routine.

Tuesday my coach at the Y increased my elliptical from 10 minutes & stride per minute of 120 to 15 minutes & stride of 150 (at least). Tuesday wasn't too bad, but Wednesday was a total killer! The first 2 minutes are the worst though, if I can get through that then I am able to get through the rest of my workout.

I've noticed that in my previous posts I say that I am going to write my food journal in my blog, yet I haven't done so yet. This is because I am really bad at writing down everything that goes in my mouth. I just think to myself that I'll be able to remember yet- but then I forget. Hopefully I'll get on the ball and get to writing my food down!

FOOD TODAY:
Breakfast: I made scrambled eggs- 3 egg whites and 1 whole egg. Ate about two bites and threw it away.
*Multivitamin

Snack: 1/2 an Oats & Grain granola bar (since I didn't have a good breakfast, I was hungry at the Y) few small sticks of celery on the drive home

Lunch: Turkey sandwich (on multi-grain bread with small layer of Smart Balance Omega mayo, lettuce, smiggen of mustard and a slice of cheese) 1/2 handful of plain Sun Chips and a Cherry Coke Zero.

I hope this was healthy... if not please someone let me know!

Snack: None

Dinner: Hot dog (I know, I know, awful to eat!)

Snack: None

"I'm tired of being a fatty with no energy"

Careful what you wish for

Ok, so I didn't do my Yoga Booty Ballet dvd or do my "Boot-Camp" workout after my pig-out on Saturday. I am completely guilt-ridden by it too. I made a bad choice to eat the way I did, and I made another bad choice by not following through with my exercise. But hey, it was only one day right? I've been working out 5 days a week, so I just started over fresh!

I went to the YMCA yesterday (Monday) for my much-needed workout. As usual, I started out on the Treadmill and worked up a bit of sweat. Then I migrated over to the bike. I have never had issues with the bike before, but the whole time I was on it (30 minutes) my feet and toes fell asleep! It wasn't the numbness kind of asleep- it was total pins and needles from the tips of my toes to the center of my feet! Oh my goodness it killed! Quite a few times I was tempted to stop, but then I thought of a new, skinnier, healthier me so I made the choice to stick it out. Once I was done with the bike I go to my enemy- the eliptical. Although this machine and I do not agree with one another, it has gotten easier. My trainer had me doing it for 10 minutes at a time. I made the mistake of asking him yesterday if I would be able to do it a little longer so I had bit more of a challenge. Be careful what you wish for my friends! He upped it to 15 minutes (which it totally doable) AND I have to keep my pace at 150, as opposed to the 120 that I was doing before! OYE!!! Beauty hurts I suppose.

I am happy to report that I am down 4 pounds in the last two weeks. That brings my grand total to 9 pounds lost! Woo hoo! Just 66 more pounds to go before I'm at my goal!

I say "BRING IT ON!!!!!!!!!!!"


Start weight of program: 210
Current Weight: 201
Ultimate Weight: 135

"I'm tired of being a fatty with no energy"

I've been a bad, bad girl

Yesterday was my daughter's 4th birthday. So, we had a party for her that consisted of pizza, cake and ice cream. We also had lots of watermelon and mixed fruit, and being from Wisconsin no party is complete without Cheese Curds- plain and dill.

Before the party started I dipped into the watermelon thinking, "At least I'm making a healthy choice!"- and then my husband walks in with like 7 or 8 boxes of Domino's Pizza (if you remember from my previous blog, pizza is one of my downfalls). I told myself that I am going to only eat one slice and then fill up on fruit. That was a great intention, however with all of my talking and engaging with others, I forgot what I was doing and before I knew it I had eaten 3 slices of pizza! After I realize what I did I was horrified! I did have a small piece of cake and about 1/2 scoop of ice cream too.

Last night my husband had to work so I invited my friend and her two kids over for a few movies. My intention was to grill a chicken breast and some veggies, but then the voices in my head told me to just hit the drive through for one last grease ridden meal- and I caved! On the way back from Family Video I ran through the drive through and ordered a grilled chicken sandwich meal (large size even). Figured I might as well finish the day the way that it had started! This was the first McDonalds (fast food in general) that I have had in quite some time. Let me tell you, my body has always "thrived" on grease- or so I thought. I got so sick and couldn't really enjoy my movie! I think that in some weird way I needed that to happen. If it didn't, I would always be craving McDonalds, but since my little 'splurge' I don't think I'll be even remotely wanting anything from there again. I'll stick to my healthy meals!

So, my punishment for having a bad eating day yesterday is that I got up and walked 2 1/2 miles and I am going to do a Yoga Booty Ballet - Latin Flavor dvd AND I am going to do all of the exercises that we did in the gym at boot camp (well, the ones that I remember anyway).

I'll post again later tonight with my exercise journal.

Exercise... Exercise

I've decided that I am going to share, in addition to my success and failures, what I happen to stick in my mouth every day and also what & how much physical activity I do for the day. I'm really hoping that this will really help me keep accountable to myself (and everyone else who may be reading this!)

So far my workouts are pretty much the same. My "coach" at the YMCA has me on a set routine to just get accustomed to physical activity (that makes me sound really pathetic!). So, my daily routine (until he decides to change it) is:

Treadmill-
5 minutes at 2.7 (warm up)
15 minutes at 3.1
5 minutes at 2.7 (cool down)

Bike-
5 minutes warm up
20 minutes 50-65 (speed)
5 minutes cool down


Eliptical- (my nemesis!)
10 minutes (it actually isn't as bad as I remember it from a few years ago, my legs don't feel like they are going to fall off 2 minutes into it!)

Walking-
2 laps around the track at a slow pace
2 laps around the track at a medium pace
2 laps around going fast (arms at 90 degrees and hoofing it) on the straight aways and take the curves at a slow pace)

Lunges-
2 sets of walking lunges (roughly 8 all together)

I've only been doing it for a few days but I really feel like I can push myself a little more. However, for now I am going to stick with Craig's plan (unless he will let me up it?!).

I did step on the scale today while at the Y and I noticed that I am now down to 200.8. I'm not too excited about that yet though because different scales measure differently. I'll need to make a trip back over to my in-laws to use their scale (since mine is broken :( ). Maybe I'll see about investing in a good-quality scale this weekend!

95.9 Kiss FM and The Biggest Loser

One of the local radio stations here in Green Bay started a Biggest Loser competition with 8 contestants getting a free personal trainer to work one-on-one with, free nutritional advice and a free gym membership. I, unfortunately, was not one of the 8 lucky ladies chosen, so when they decided to do an "At-Home" Biggest Loser as well, I was all excited to sign up. The downfall to the At-Home losers was that we had to do it 100% on our own. No paid gym membership. No paid personal trainer. No free nutritional advice. It was completely up to us to lose the weight and eat right. On our own. Alone. Ok, so maybe signing up was a mistake since I have the lowest willpower known to man. Give up McDonalds and pizza? Yeah right. Stop eating my much beloved chocolate? No way! Exercise that went beyond walking from one room to the other? Hahaha!

Then, one mundane Monday morning my telephone rang (and lo-behold I didn't hear it ring so it went to voicemail) and later my husband told me that I missed a call from what looked to be a radio station. I thought "they must be calling to see how well I'm doing with losing weight! Oh my... good thing I didn't answer the phone because I didn't want to have to admit that I wasn't doing a single darn thing to get healthy!". Moments later I go check my email and I notice that I have an email from Doug and Mary (the radio station dj's). Great. Now they're stalking me through my email since they couldn't get in touch with me via phone. This is the email that I received.

Mistie,

Any chance you want to go to our Boot camp weekend at the Waube Lodge?? It is June 1,2, and 3rd...it will be a total blast!

Let us know if you are available or if you are interested!!

Mary Love
95-9 Kiss FM

My heart started pounding out of my chest. "Could I do this? Would I be able to survive it? I'll look like a complete idiot since I haven't lost one ounce since this competition started! But I bet it will be kinda fun. Sure, I'll do it".

Let me tell you, it was a FANTASTIC weekend! Oh sure, the workouts were really brutal, but I SURVIVED!! Nothing like a feeling of accomplishment! There were 4 of the original gym-losers and 4 of the at-home losers that were invited. Only 2 of the gym and 3 of the at-homes came.

That Saturday morning one of my fellow At-Home'ers and I went down to the fitness room and had a little workout before the "real" workout began. As an afterthought, that was a pretty bad idea! For 45 minutes straight we did push-ups, sit-ups (cross extensions- elbow to opposite knee), walking lunges across the banquet hall, walking sideways lunges, jack-knife, more push ups, wall push-ups, wall squats, plank and a few others that I can't think about at the moment. We were all pretty exhausted after that, so we took a break and had breakfast. After our break we all went for a nice walk- about 2 miles or so. It was a really nice walk, even after it started to rain on us. The rain actually felt pretty good, as it was so hot! When we returned from our walk we took a lunch break. We all met back up about an hour and a half later down at the lake for the paddle-boat competition. We were in teams of two and had to race from a set of buoys across the lake and around a floating dock and back to the buoys. Well, my wonderful teammate, Chris, and I won that competition! We both won 2 free passes to Mt. Olympus at the Wisconsin Dells! From what I hear it is a pretty awesome place to be! After our fun in the water, we went back up to the land (right behind the resort) for a little running fun! We each had to strap on a backpack (one at a time) that had 18 pounds of weight in it PLUS carry a 12 pound ball then RUN 4 times around a set of trees (not exactly sure how far apart the trees were). By the time I got to 3 I was ready to collapse and puke! But again, I managed to complete the task! The very last task consisted of a wall-squat competition. The prize- two tickets to the Timber Rattlers game. Sorry to say that the three at-home'rs were practically out of the competition as soon as it started. Our legs had just been through hell!

The Gang
Personal Trainers Justin and Melissa, Radio Djs Doug and Mary, At-home losers Vickie, Me and Chris, Gym losers Trisha and Kati (front)

A picture of the paddle-boat competition. The girls are just about at the "start/finish" line. We had to go all the way to where the houses are (top of picture to the right) and back.

Here we are during our BBQ relaxing after the torture we were just put through!

This was the kick in the butt that I needed to get my health straightened out. I came home on Sunday (the 3rd) and have been working out at the YMCA every day since then. I have a 12 week Personal Fitness Program that I am doing and in 12 weeks I expect to weigh quite a bit less than I do right now!




Start weight of the program: 210
Ultimate weight goal: 130

"I'm tired of being a fatty with no energy"