30 Day Challenge - Day 7

One week down and down five pounds!! I can't say I have been totally strict with the schedule, but I feel like I made it work. Here are the bullet points for the week:

• A total of four T-25 workouts. I did the Cardio this morning and I was amazed at already how much easier it was than when I did the same one on Monday. I am still doing the modified version because I'm not ready for the impact, but I did manage to do everything faster and for longer!

• I managed to stay MOSTLY sugar free this week. I did have a few slip ups, but by Saturday, when I did sneak a latte (shhhhh...) it tasted TERRIBLE to me. After only one week!!

• As for the rest of the food...well, I did so so. I ended up putting the flank steak in the freezer, uncooked. I just ended up with so much food, so I guess I didn't stick with the five meals a day plan very well. It's just so hard with my class schedule to eat a meal. I'd rather have something I can nibble on when I can sneak it in. Plus, by the end of the week, I was literally gagging on the food! Not because it had gone bad or tasted bad, I was just way past my two day limit for eating leftovers. 

• Did I mention I lost five pounds??!! No noticeable changes in my other measurements though.

My goals for the upcoming week:

1. All six T-25 workouts.
2. No sugar slip ups.
3. A little better with the meal plan than last week.

This week, am going to try prepping the ingredients instead of prepping the entire meal when possible. Making things fresh might help me avoid my leftover issues. 

30 Day Challenge - Day 3

Today was tough. Although I love the idea of pre-made meals, it really pushes my food limits. Up until a couple of years ago I could NOT eat leftovers. I started to force myself to eat them, but even then I could only eat them for one more day. So...for the first two days everything was fine. This morning, however, it was all I could do to choke down the quinoa. Great, how am I supposed to eat all this food for the next FOUR days if I can't even get through the first THREE days??!!

When I got to work, I found a bag of stuff I had brought into my classroom a few weeks ago. It never got unpacked. Well...I opened it up today to put the stuff away and I found two Hershey bars that I had totally forgot about. I lost ALL my willpower at that moment and ate one...then the other. Strike one.

I ate my chicken salad at lunch, but I did not manage another mid-day meal, so when I got home I was pretty hungry. Feeling already lousy about messing up earlier, I went to the McD's drive through. I ended up with a dipped ice cream cone and a hamburger. Strike two.

When I got home I sat on the couch and watched TV for a few hours while I did some work. Seriously considered not working out, but I did. It was the T-25 Total Body Circuit for 25 minutes. I'm supposed to do 60 minutes. Strike...okay I'm not going to count that one.

I didn't blog yesterday, but it was an okay day. Trying to work and follow the meal plan is tough. It's not like I can just sit down in the middle of a class and eat a meal. I did breakfast, lunch and then made the shrimp fajitas (yum!) for dinner. Instead of one of the mid-day meals I had a handful of peanuts. A more portable option for the mid-day meals would help me out so much. And...I didn't work out.

On a positive note, I still have not had a latte!! Little victories, I guess. Here's to a better tomorrow.

30 Day Challenge - Day 1

Today is Labor Day, so a day off for me. I woke up at my usual time, but managed to go back to sleep  until 8:30. I hardly ever feel hungry when I first get up, and today was no exception. The rules of the challenge, however, say that I have to eat my first meal within 30 minutes to one hour after getting up.

I started to warm up the apple pie quinoa that I made yesterday, but decided since I have the time I would make the egg white veggie omelet instead. It was yummy!! One of the things I have been worried about the most was that there wasn't going to be enough food. I really don't think that is going to be a problem! Last night I couldn't even finish the pork tenderloin and this morning I had to force myself to finish the omelet. Again, the rules say to eat ALL the food.

Egg White Veggie Omelet

So I ate it all! And set my timer to remind me to eat again in 3 hours.

60 minutes of exercise...DONE!!

I'm off to a good start.

30 day challenge

As you can tell from the date on my last post, my plan kind of went sideways...again. I did, however, manage to make it through the winter without gaining any weight, so that was good.

Then came June. School got out and I had a goal to lose 30 pounds before school started. Not a bad goal. It ended up working out to be about 10 pounds per month. I ended up losing 80 pounds! WooHoo! Unfortunately, it was the same 10 pounds...eight times. BooHoo!

I feel like I worked really hard, too. I added exercise and watched what I was eating. Could I have done better? Heck yeah! But, I thought I was at least doing something and I figured the weight should come off slowly. I lost the first 10 pounds by the end of June. I was ecstatic!! What I was doing seemed to be working. Or so I thought. By the next week I had gained all 10 pounds back. WTF??!!

This cycle continued all summer long. By August, I was so frustrated that I just wanted to give up. And I pretty much did. When school started I was back to where I was when school got out.

The Brick Softball Team

That's me on the far right. I played all summer on a softball team, two nights a week. I had so much fun!!

On Facebook, a few friends follow a local personal trainer. I joined her page and started reading her posts. She was in the process of starting up one of her 30 day challenges, so I checked out some of the before and afters. What appealed to me was that she had everything planned out. Weekly menus, daily workouts, how much, how long...everything. So I signed up.

The weekly menu came yesterday. Everything is prepped at the beginning of the week, so all you have to do is grab and go. I love that part! You eat every 2 1/2 - 3 hours, so I can eat right in my classroom if I need to. So I made my shopping list this morning and headed to the grocery store.

(I did get one last latte from Starbucks...lattes are definitely NOT on the menu for the next 30 days.)

Since I am not used to shopping for a week at a time, the bill was a bit of a shock! The food total was about $125, but that also included things like spices and condiments that I didn't have that will last me for more than just this one week.

Here is an estimate of what I am currently spending:

Lattes and scones: $37.50
School lunches: $17.50
Eating out: $60.00
(these amounts are minimums)

So really, the $125 doesn't seem so bad.

When I got home, I started working right away. The first thing I did was start the Apple Pie Quinoa in the slow cooker. I ended up making a double batch, because there is one meal at the end of the day that we can fill in with any of the other meals. Then I made the lunches. Did I mention how much I love the idea of grab and go lunches??!! Nothing to think about in the morning, other than to remember to pack everything.

Food Prep

You can see that I have three things going! On the left and in the frying pan are the turkey meatballs, ready to cook. In the middle are the roasted veggies that just came out of the oven and on the right is the quinoa in the slow cooker. After I finished the meatballs, I made up the chicken salad.

Here is a close up of the veggies. I think I could have eaten the whole tray, they are so yummy!!

Roasted Veggies

From l-r: butternut squash, broccoli, zucchini, red onion, red pepper, cremini mushrooms

It took several hours, but I managed to get everything done except the dinners. For dinner, I figured I'd make each one fresh each night and then put up the leftovers for the remainder of the week. Since there should be plenty of food, I am actually going to make the first dinner tonight instead of waiting until tomorrow.

Ready to Go Meals!!

With the food done, I decided to take my measurements.

Day 1
Waist: 48"
Hips: 53"
Thigh: 31"
Chest: 52"

Since there is not much difference between these and the ones in January, I think I will just use the same pics from the earlier post.

I will weigh myself in the morning.

I am so glad this is starting tomorrow since it is a holiday and I don't have work. I feel like it will get me off to a really good start.

Monday Funday!

I did it! I made it though the first T-25 workout and it didn't kill me. I did the modified version all the way through, but I didn't stop. And you know what? It went by super fast!

I think I can do this!

It Begins Today

I got this in the mail yesterday and I am pretty excited about it!

I was anxious to get started, but saw that the workout schedule is Monday through Friday, so I have one last weekend to get myself ready. I weighed myself, took my measurements, and took some hideous bathroom selfies. I also began making a grocery list, so I can do some shopping this weekend.

Here are my beginning numbers:

Weight: 268
Chest: 50
Waist: 49
Arms: 15.5
Thighs: 30
Hips: 51

What that actually looks like (I am 5'8" tall):

I left the pictures completely un-retouched. I figure that since I feel terrible about how my body looks right now, I might as well keep the pictures just as terrible. I figure I will celebrate my progress by having someone take the next pictures for me!

I have recently lost 30 pound, just by changing jobs and changing a few things in my diet. I figure if I can lose that much in four months just by doing a little bit, that I should see much better results if I add some exercise to the mix!

Ultimately, I would love it if I could get down to 150. I was 180 when I graduated from high school, and I always thought that I could stand to lose 20-30 pounds. Realistically though, I am over 40 now, so I am not sure how doable that is. Right now I am going to focus on smaller goals so it doesn't feel too big. Losing 10% of my current weight seems like a good short term goal, which is 27 pounds and would take me to 241. Let's see how close I come to that after I finish the first five week Alpha phase!

Good Signs