When Life Knocks you down do a Burpee

So last week I was feeling kind of down. I will admit I have not been doing well at all this summer with weight loss and it is making me mad. I am not where I thought I would be but I am can do now is try and rest myself and continue to move forward.

This week and last week I have some extra time on my hand which is nice. With this extra time I have been able to try some classes at the gym that I have wanted to try and I also have been able to cook. I do enjoy cooking, being able to work with the food that I will eat and prepare it just make it that much more satisfying to eat. Last week I made shredded chicken taco's that were super easy to make and they were delicious and Chicken Enchilada Soup that was also scrumptious!  I made this for my family and they all liked it so much that there was nothing left over!

 Yesterday was Minestrone soup because it was raining and cold all day a.k.a the perfect day for soup.

And today was Chicken and White Bean Stuffed Peppers because I wanted to try making something not in the crock pot lol.

Besides trying some new classes at the gym I have started two new things in my workout plan. I have started taking a water aerobics class the last couple week and I love it. Yes it is a lot of older women in the class but for me that is part of the fun. I started taking the class as per the suggestion of one of the trainers at my gym as a low impact workout for my knee. The other change that I made was that I started my Couch to 5K program which means I am so close to running my first 5K this year!  I completed the first week and it felt good! I also tried to solve my problem with music by instead of listening to a random mix listening to whole CD's and I enjoyed that. Last week I ran to Alabama Shakes, Foster the People, and Wilco. All three of them I felt had great beats to run to.

Week 1 Running:

Start with a 5 minute warm up walk 

repeat this interval 3 time 

Run 30 sec

Walk 45 sec

 Run 45 sec 

Walk 60 sec

Run 60 sec 

Walk 90 sec

End with a 5 minute cool down walk

Firefly 5K: 31 days
Chicago Blackhawks Mad Dash To Madison 5K:  38 Days
Pounds removed: 76.0

How I Met Your Workout

One thing that I love to do like many people is watch TV. I have lots of favorite shows and recently I have found a great site that has great workouts that you can do while you watch the show. So this morning I put in a disk of one of my favorite shows How I meet Your Mother. I watched two episodes and did the workout.

The Workout: 

Every time...

Barney says something inappropriate.....10 Crunches

Lily and Marshall Talk.............................15 Bicycles 

Ted Goes on a Date................................5 Pushups

They Refer to Journalism.................................15 Jumping Jacks

We See Ted's Kids................................10 Squats

We hear the narrator...............................10 Lunges

Robin Complains......................................25 Punches

 I enjoyed doing this! It gave me something to do while watching a show other than just sitting there and maybe even eating. I will definitely be using this site and trying the other workouts for other shows!

Firefly 5K: 37 days
Chicago Blackhawks Mad Dash To Madison 5K:  45 Days
Pounds removed: 74.2

Olympics and Running

What a week so far! Being able to watch the Olympics has fulled my urge to continue to work hard. I mean I highly doubt that I will ever be able to swim a 100 IM Backstroke in 58 seconds like Missy Franklin but I defiantly can work on swimming. I was able to find an awesome Kerri Walsh butt workout that I am excited to try! I do enjoy watching the Olympics, I think that if I were to compete in an Olympic competition right now I think I would want to be a competitive speed walker, I don't know why but I just think it would be fun.

Other than watching the Olympics, next week I start my training for my first and second 5k of the year! WOOHOO!!!!!!!! That means in 5 weeks I will be running in my 4th 5k! I started running them last year as another fitness thing to do. I have yet to be able to run the whole distance but I hope that one day I will be able to. One thing that I find essential to running and working out in general is to have a good playlist of songs that you enjoy and something that you won't get sick of easily.This is something that I have been having some trouble with. I do have a workout playlist that has lots of popular songs on it, lots of Pitbull, Black Eyed Peas, and Lady Gaga, but the problem is that I am so sick of listening to them now (I know I am in the vast minority who is sick of Gaga and thinks she is overplayed). So I guess I'm a little stuck with that right now. I am thinking about trying a running playlist with a combination of Alabama Shakes, Wilco, and maybe some Beatles. By the way if you have never heard of Alabama Shakes go to Youtube NOW and listen to them, they are AMAZING and as my brother said it is like going to church for your ears.

Firefly 5K: 42 days
Chicago Blackhawks Mad Dash To Madison 5K:  49 Days
Pounds removed: 76.4

Don't Lose Faith you Got This!

Well another week has gone by. There was some changes to my weekly routine the big one being that I did not have a softball game on Sunday. Softball has been the one consistent sport that I have been involved with my whole life and I love to play it.

This week also brought a freezer full of fish! My youngest sister works at an Ice Cream shop near our house and although that can be a problem sometimes (who doesn't love a large Sunday at 11:30 at nigh!) it also give us the benefit of free fish every so often because the shop is located across the street from a test kitchen and they will give the workers the fish.With that plus the fact that our deck is rebuilt, which means we have a grill (and AMAZING outdoor area) it makes for a great rest of the summer/fall.

As for weight loss, when I got on the scale this morning I was expecting to gain seeing as the meals that I had last week/ not weighing in last week. I was certainly surprised seeing as I went up only 0.2 pounds. Not bad at all!

Firefly 5K: 47 days
Chicago Blackhawks Mad Dash To Madison 5K:  53 Days
Pounds removed: 76.4

Ain't' no Mountain high enough

I have been recently using the treadmill to be getting back into running. I started out by doing my own thing of alternating between running and walking for 5 minutes. I felt a little lost with it. So I turned to the internet to try and find something. Not only did I turn to the internet but I turned to Pintrest. Now I didn't know what to expect but I was looking for something that I felt like I could do, something that looked intense but not something where the speed is to crazy fast. It didn't take long till I was able to find something. Than I found it!

I can tell you this is AMAZING!!!!! I love a good workout where when I am just drenching in my own sweet and this does it. This is also a workout where, for me, I don't feel like it has been 45 minutes that I have been on a treadmill working my butt off. I try to do this at least once a week if not more. All in all I can not recommended this routine enough!

Firefly 5K: 50 days
Chicago Blackhawks Mad Dash To Madison 5K:  57 Days
Pounds removed: 76.6

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

So I failed a little. When I first started this I thought that I was going to be posting more than once a week but obviously that didn't happen this past week, but it is a new week.

So this past week I felt was going to be another good week. I went to at least one spin class and I decided that I was going to make a weekly commitment to start attending Turbo Kick at my gym. I LOVE going to spin class. Pretending to be going up steep hills and pushing myself to limits that I keep redefining makes me feel great, not to mention because of spinning (and running) I think that I have some great sticks I'm walking on lol. Turbo Kick is my gyms version of kickboxing. I don't know what it is about kickboxing/boxing in general but for some reason I really do like it. So needless to say I feel like I had a great week at the gym. Than the weekend came. Lets just make a long story short and say that there was lots of heavy food that I ate that also may not have been the healthiest things to eat. I am completely ok with what I ate this weekend because I was able to enjoy myself and have a great time with great people.

Firefly 5K: 53 days
Pounds removed: 76.6

You + Your Goal = It's coming

This week was a good week! It was a normal week (whatever normal is) that didn't see too many stressful situation. I say that because I am a stress/ emotional eater and that is something that I have to change about myself.

I did have a day that could have easily brought me down. On Sunday I went to the Taste of Chicago.  The Taste is something that I have gone to for many years and I LOVE IT!!!!!! It is lots of fun and there always is lots of food! I was a little worried about what I was going to eat there and staying within my ww daily points but I am happy to say that I survived! When my mom and I first got down to the Taste the first thing that we did was visit the huge Humana tent. In the tent they were giving away free pedometer which was nice considering I didn't even think about putting on my pedometer when I left home, now I have a way of seeing just how far I was able to walk and I would be able to calculate my activity points! Also at the Humana tent they had special card that said what the healthy options were for people to eat and lets just say that sheet of paper did not get put away! Although that Taste is about food and showcasing the great restaurants in Chicago, there is also non-eating activities available for people to participate in. My mom and I went and watched a cooking demo from Sarah Grueneberg the executive chef of Spiaggia and she also happened to be the runner up on one of my favorite shows ever Top Chef so that was a plus! All in All I managed to stay on plan and walked over 2,000 steps just at the Taste alone!

Today I also registered for a 5K in September. So I have that to start getting ready for and I am excited for it.

This week I removed 3.4 pounds!