Spring In2 Action

The gals over at Shrinking Jeans have come up with our next challenge.

Over the next 6 weeks, if you follow our ACTION plan, you will see results. Real results that you can feel good about, results that will stick because you are not just losing weight, but changing yourself from the inside out.

• Analyze your goals – decide what you want to accomplish over the next 6 weeks.

• Commit to a plan – how are you going to achieve your goals? Put it on the calendar! 

• Track your progress – Journal, journal, journal. Whether it’s on your blog or on paper. 

• Inspire yourself and others – Supporting other people will inspire you to do your best. 

• Overcome your fears – Face them head on, and realize you’re strong and can do anything. 

• Never give up – Enough said. Quitting is not an option.

Here is how I'm going to tackle the next 6 weeks:

Analyze your goals 

• My goal is to lose 5 pounds per calendar month.  But if I don't lose the full 5 pounds in a month, the extra will get carried over.  So my goal for April is going to be to lose 7 pounds.  
• My goal is to feel healthier and to have more energy.  I really do feel better on the days that I exercise, so I need to keep reminding myself of that.
• My goal is to feel great about how I look.  This is a new concept for me, and I still find myself wanting to hide behind bulky sweaters, but as I start to feel healthier, I'm starting to want to show my progress more and more.

Commit to a plan

• I will continue with Tae Kwon Do 3 times a week.  I have fun, Liam has fun and it's a great workout.
• I will continue to work out at home on the days that I don't go to Tae Kwon Do.
• I will continue to make healthy food choices, while not restricting myself so much that I fall into the old habit of binging on junk food.

Track your progress

• I will continue to use MyFitness Pal to track my food and my exercise.
• I will continue to blog about my journey, so that I can look back and see my progress.

Inspire yourself and others

• I will need to work on this one!

Overcome your fears

• Tae Kwon do continues to be a bit of a fear for me to over come.  
• My fear of failure is an area that I need to address.  It's so easy to get caught up in thinking that I've had a bad week, so I should just throw in the towel completely because I've already failed.

Never give up

• This ties in nicely with overcoming my fear of failure.  
• I will not give up!

Wednesday Weigh In

Starting Weight - 235 on January 1st, 2012
Current Goal - 215 by March 31st, 2012
Current Weight - 217.7

Weight lost this week -  Gain of 1.3 lbs
Weight lost so far- 17.7 lbs

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I had made it as low as 216 last week but have gained 1.3 pounds this week. It's not really a big surprise since we celebrated Hilary's birthday this past weekend.  That meant a lovely steak dinner with mashed potatoes and garlic bread and of course birthday cake!  And it also meant 3 days with no exercise. Based on that I'm okay with having only gained just over a pound.  I don't think I will make 215 by Saturday of this week though.

Overall March has been an okay month but not as good as I had hoped.   I gave up on the Six-Pack March challenge somewhere around day 13.  That was around the time I started Tae Kwon Do.  We do push-ups as part of the warm up and I was so sore after the first few days, that something had to give.  I almost made my goal of doing some exercise every day, but blew it this past weekend.

The Shrinking Jeans will be posting a new challenge for April and I look forward to it.  I like being accountable and it helps to have a great online support group.  I'm not going to beat myself up about March, but embrace the fact that I can now run 7 laps of the gym before TKD without having to walk, I did an actual push-up on Monday, I have another pair of jeans that are too loose and people continue to comment on how I look!

Week 13 - Eat your Breakfast

To recap:
Week 1: Drink 14 cups of water a day - √
Week 2: Get 8 hours of sleep per night - √
Week 3: Keep off the couch - √
Week 4: Keep a food journal -√
Week 5: See the glass half full - Working on it
Week 6: Multi Vitamins -  X
Week 7: Keep the outside out - 75% yes, 25% no
Week 8: Eat your Veggies-√
Week 9: Enjoy time alone-√
Week 10: Take time to stretch- √
Week 11: Read the Box-√
Week 12: Breath Deep- Not so much

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The Change: Start every day with a healthy breakfast.

I kinda of do this one already, but not in the healthy way that they mean.  People talk about a healthy breakfast being full of protein to fuel your body for the day.  My breakfast is far from full of protein.  In fact, my breakfast is mostly full of water since I eat a huge bag of vegetables every morning.  But after seeing this week's change, I had my Greek yogurt first thing (new flavour too, Key Lime, I highly recommend it!).

Did I feel any better for starting the day with protein?  Not that I noticed. Maybe it has a more cumulative effect.  I don't know if I will switch my yogurt to being my first food every morning, but I will make an effort to have a breakfast with a bit more gusto to it before I dive into my beloved bag of veggies.

Wednesday Weigh In

Starting Weight - 235 on January 1st, 2012
Current Goal - 215 by March 31st, 2012

Current Weight - 218.9

Weight lost this week -  1.4 lbs
Weight lost so far- 17.5 lbs

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The scale is not the only way to measure your success in weight loss.  Sure you can also notice it in your clothes or energy level, but I have a new favourite way of knowing that I am moving in the right direction -   having people that I barely know at my office (I work on a floor with 100+ people) come up and tell me how great I look or "Congratulations" on losing weight.

This has now happened to me 5-6 times in the last week.  It's such a great feeling!  My hard work is paying off to the point that other people have noticed.  That to me spells success a lot more then the numbers that go up and down on my scale.  And it really motivates me to keep going.

Week 12 - Take a Deep Breath (3-19-12)

To recap:
Week 1: Drink 14 cups of water a day - √
Week 2: Get 8 hours of sleep per night - √
Week 3: Keep off the couch - √
Week 4: Keep a food journal -√
Week 5: See the glass half full - Working on it
Week 6: Multi Vitamins -  X
Week 7: Keep the outside out - 75% yes, 25% no
Week 8: Eat your Veggies-√
Week 9: Enjoy time alone-√
Week 10: Take time to stretch- as part of working out, or sometimes at the office
Week 11: Read the Box-√

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The Change: Once a day, dedicate five minutes to breathing deeply.

I'm not a big fan of breathing deeply.  More often then note it makes my lightheaded and dizzy.  But Christy over a the 'Hood might be on to something "Or wait until you get into bed and shut the lights off. I don't think there's any harm in doing in while lying down!" That might actually work for me and it would be a great way to relax as I fall asleep.

So I'm going to add a 12th small change to routine.  I'm doing well with most of the others, but I do worry that we are going to soon have so many that it will be impossible to keep track of.  But I guess the point of these all being cumulative is that they simply become second nature, a part of your day to day activities that you don't even think about them.  That is certainly true for me for drinking water and keeping a food journal.  The rest aren't quite ingrained yet.

Over the shoulder boulder holder

For Otto Titsling had found his quest:

to lift and mold the female breast;

to point the small ones to the sky; 

to keep the big ones high and dry!*

As most women know, when you lose weight you have no control over what area of your body that weight comes from.  Sure we can plank to build our ab muscles or do squats to tone our butts.  But ultimately the weight will come from where the weight wants to.  And 99% of the time it starts with the breasts.

I have had a love-hate relationship with my breasts for most of my life.  I was well endowed by the time I was 13 and by my early 20's I had back and shoulder pain and could only buy speciality size bras that were very expensive.  Then in my early 30's I had a breast reduction.  I lost 5 pounds in the course of 2 hours, when they removed 2.5 pounds of breast tissue from each side.  

But in the past 10 years I have put on a lot of weight.  And while my breast never got as big as they once were, they certainly gained too.  Now that I'm losing the weight, it seems to be melting right out of my bras.  So I went off on a quest to buy new bras.  Having large breasts has always meant that I had to shop in the utilitarian bra section.  Not very pretty, but VERY functional.  At best they come in two colours - white and beige.   Yesterday I decided to take the plunge and check out the rest of the bra section.  Armed with nearly a dozen styles and sizes I headed to the change room.  I'm never going to be an A cup but I did manage to find new bras that not only were affordable, they are actually nice to look at.

My first ever "pretty" bra!

*Lyrics from one of the BEST Bette Midler songs ever.

Wednesday Weigh In

Starting Weight - 235 on January 1st, 2012
Current Goal - 215 by March 31st, 2012

Current Weight - 218.9

Weight lost this week -  0.4 lbs
Weight lost so far- 16.1 lbs

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This hasn't been my most stellar week, with the least amount lost so far.  I did have some not good choice meals (fried chicken, taters and a mini blizzard for desert!) so I'm not all that surprised.  I'm still aiming to hit 215 by March 31st, and I am still confident that I will.  This week also coincided with my Daring Kitchen Challenge, which was braised pork belly.  Very yummy, but not very calorie conscious.

The good part of this past week, which probably accounts for the slight loss even with consuming all of this great food, is that I have started Tae Kwon Do classes with Liam.  I've only been twice now, each time for an hour.  What a great work out!  A full hour of Tae Kwno Do burns approx. 1000 calories, which is nearly my full days allotment.  I currently track each lesson at 40 minutes of time to account for the down time and  warm up.  The warm up is about 20 minutes and has everything from stretches to running drills across the gym.  They are a great supportive group and cheered me on while I dragged my butt across the floor when we were supposed to be doing crab walks.

I'm still working on the Six-Pack March Challenge.  I'm up to 45 sit ups, 17 push-ups (or at least my version of a push-up) and was supposed to do a 70 second plank..  My legs, arms, shoulders and back are very sore from Tae Kwon Do Monday night, that I had to skip the challenge yesterday because I was having  with walking or being able to sit down and stand up again.  My plan is to do it twice today.  I did yesterday's counts this morning, but my arms are still sore and I only made it to 60 seconds of the plank before collapsing.  I did manage 45 sit-ups, but I have to pause after every 10 to catch my breath.  The last 5 were HARD and I had to use my arms to pull myself all the way up.  It doesn't make me feel very confident that I will be able to do 100 situps by the end of the month. 

I'm hoping to have a better week, though we are having dinner at Pizza Delight tonight as we have Liam and his Big Brother's one year review.  I'm planning on having one of their salads with chicken, which seems to be the best choice from their menu.

I hope everyone else has had a great week too.

Week 11 - Read the Box (3/12/12)

To recap:
Week 1: Drink 14 cups of water a day - √
Week 2: Get 8 hours of sleep per night - √
Week 3: Keep off the couch - √
Week 4: Keep a food journal -√
Week 5: See the glass half full - Working on it
Week 6: Multi Vitamins -  Haven't remembered this one all week :(
Week 7: Keep the outside out - 75% yes, 25% no
Week 8: Eat your Veggies-√
 Week 9: Enjoy time alone-√
 Week 10: Take time to stretch- I'm not doing so well with this one, but I try!

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The Change:
Learn how to read the ingredient list and nutrition facts panel on packaged products so you can make healthier choices.

 I read labels a lot more these days, but mainly to read the calorie content and the serving size.  Who knew that serving sizes could be so deceiving?   It's been a real eye opener to check the labels of things before I buy them. The good thing is that we don't eat a lot of pre-processed food, so I don' t have to worry too much about what is in things.  Most of the processed foods that we do eat, I already know are bad for me (cookies, chips, candy....)

This week we also have an assignment with our small change:

1. Go to your pantry and pull out the first three things you see. Look at the labels.

2. How many ingredients are in each item? Can you pronounce all of them? Do you know what they are? Fat and sugar have many aliases. List a few of the ones you know.

3. What is the serving size? Go and measure or weigh they items and see if you're normally getting more than a serving. What is the outcome? 

 1. My three items, things that I eat fairly regularly:

                  a) Lipton Cup-a-soup Chicken Noodle
                  b) Vegetable Thins
                  c) Snack Pack Chocolate pudding

2. Each has a minimum of 10 ingredients, with the crackers having more than 20.  I was surprised to find MSG in both the soup and the crackers.  The soup has 2 ingredients called "disodium guanylate and disodium inosinate" and the crackers have "soybean oil with TBHQ".  I have no idea what any of these things are.  Even the pudding has a mysterious ingredient - "carrageenan" which doesn't sound good at all.

3.  I'm good with the serving sizes for these items.  The puddings and soup come pre-measured, so those are easy.  The crackers' serving size is 15 and I do measure those out when I take them for lunch, since I am counting calories and need to know what I've eaten.

I eat these items because they are low in calories - soup = 50, crackers = 80 and pudding = 90.  But looking at them holistically,  they probably aren't the best choices that I could be making.  Thanks to this small change, I will definitely be paying more attention to labels.

Wednesday Weigh In

Starting Weight - 235 on January 1st, 2012
Current Goal - 215 by March 31st, 2012

Current Weight - 219.3

Weight lost this week -  2 lbs
Weight lost so far- 15.7 lbs

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I've decided to set a smaller goal for March of only losing 5 pounds.  Since I've already lost most of one of them, I may overshoot my goal, but I'm good with that.  For me, 50% of weight loss is playing mind games with myself.  If I don't focus on my goal every minute of every day, I will simply fall back into old routines.  So having a small, obtainable goal will boost my self esteem when I hit it, and help me with the momentum to keep going.

As I've mentioned before, this is the longest stretch of time that I have kept my focus and made progress.  The best thing?  I feel GREAT about it.  I have more energy, I feel really good about myself (especially when people notice the weight loss and comment).  I'm getting lots of support from Hilary at home, which is invaluable!  I'm even enjoying the working out.  Challenges like the March Six Pack or  Shrink Yo Self  from the Sisterhood, really help me to stay focused and feel that I have commitments that I have to do.

The downside (if you can call it a downside) is that my clothes are all too big now!  Which is great, but I can't afford to buy a whole new wardrobe, especially since I plan to keep losing.  I'm down to having 3 pairs of jeans and no dress pants.  I put on a pair of the jeans this morning only to find that they are now baggy too.   I'm going to try to find a pair or two of interim sizes on sale, or even from Frenchy's to get me through.  I don't mind my sweaters being baggy, but once the weather warms up I will have to re-evaluate my summer clothes too.

So overall, things are still going great and I look forward to another fantastic week.

Week 10 - Take time to stretch (3/5/12)

To recap:
Week 1: Drink 14 cups of water a day - √
Week 2: Get 8 hours of sleep per night - √
Week 3: Keep off the couch - √
Week 4: Keep a food journal -√
Week 5: See the glass half full - Working on it
Week 6: Multi Vitamins -  I remember about 50% of the time... need to work harder on this one.
Week 7: Keep the outside out - 75% yes, 25% no
Week 8: Eat your Veggies-√
 Week 9: Enjoy time alone-√

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Stretch a minimum of 20 minutes three times a week to maintain flexibility.

Hmmmm... I need more hours in my day!

One thing I discovered yesterday was that I liked doing Yoga and Strength exercises with Wii Fit right before bed.  I`ve been having trouble staying asleep because  I get a strange restlessness in my legs that make me feel like I have to flex and stretch my legs compulsively, thus keeping me from falling back to sleep.  However, since I`ve been doing more exercise, I have noticed that it has been less.  So I think that 20 minutes of stretching right before bed might just be the thing I need.

Six-Pack March

A new challenge went up today over at Shrinking Jeans.   It's a daily challenge that gets harder as the month goes on, made up of sit-ups, push-ups and planks.

Because I am determined to not only lose weight but get into shape too, I have decided to give this a go ON TOP of my commitment to work out for 30 minutes every day.  Crazy!

The only problem that I foresee is that I have NEVER been able to do even a single push-up.  I can sorta/kinda do the kind on my knees, but even then, it's not really a push up.  Maybe after 31 days and attempting up to 35 of these at a time, I'll actually conquer how to do them!

In like a Lion

While the weather is still pretty cold here, March certainly did not come in like a Lion today.  But I've decided that I'm going to face March head on and conquer the lion!

My challenge to myself is to exercise for a minimum of 30 minutes EVERY SINGLE DAY this month.

See that new calendar over on the right?  I am going to keep myself accountable by publicly displaying my success.  And hopefully you will call me out if I fall behind.

Along with my exercise goal I am setting a goal to reach 215 pounds  by March 31st.  That means losing 6 pounds in just over 4 weeks.

I will do this.

What are your goals for the new month?