You Asked...

A couple of people asked me what I've been doing to lose the weight. They clearly think I lost more than I actually did, but I'll take the compliment just the same. I gave pretty generic answers, you know - 'exercise, eat less...' so I decided to start posting my exercise routines. I don't know the name of all of the exercises, so I'll do my best to describe the ones that I don't know the name of.

I just switched from 8 pound weights to 10 pound weights and I do 12 reps each. Today I did


Upper Body

- 3 sets bicep curls (1 full, 1 half up and 1 half down)
- tricep extensions
- tricep isometric lift
- rotator cuff exercise where you keep your elbows close to your side with your arms at a 90 degree angle and you move your arm back until your arm is lined up with your side and then return it to the starting position
- one arm dumbbell row
- arms at shoulder height at a 90 degree angle, then pull your elbows together
- lateral dumbbell raises
- push ups

Lower Body

- squats
- forward lunges
- backward lunges
- hip abduction exercise where you stand straight and move your foot out to the side a few inches and then back to starting
- inner thigh exercise where you stand and sweep your foot across the front of your body
- 3 sets of leg curls
- 2 sets of dead man lifts

Abdominal

- crunches
- laying on your back you lift your legs and slowly lower them down to about 2 - 3inches from the floor and then lift them back to starting position
- laying on your back bring opposite elbows to knees
- footprints to the sky
- laying on your back with your feet together and in the air, make circles with your feet

So - that's what I did today.

I'm Back

Hi,
I was away on vacation for one week, one very busy yet very relaxing week in the Dominican Republic. During the week I actually read my book on eating clean as well as read a complete issue of FitnessRx and some of my book on training to run a marathon. (Oh, did I tell you that I'm doing the Disney Marathon in January 2009?) For the last few years, the thought of having enough time in the day to actually read more than a few pages at a time has been a fantasy for me, so having the time was great.

I also exercised while I was away. I didn't do as much as I wanted to do but I did get up early and swim a couple of days as well as lower body exercises in my room a couple of days. I wanted to do more, but the exercise room at the resort had non working exercise equipment.

When I got back I started trying to eat clean but I don't think there were enough carbs for me. I was feeling tired and light headed by the end of the second day and didn't feel like I had enough energy for a workout so I decided I'd stick to the basics of eating clean and add some healthy carbs to my diet as well. It seems to be working so far. Since there's no one size fits all healthy diet I know it'll take some tweaking.

I enjoy food, I enjoy ALL types of food and I usually gain a few pounds when I go on vacation, so that was a real concern for me. I tried not to overeat or to eat too much junk food. When I got back I went to the medical department for a weigh in. Here are my results -

August 27, 2008 vs. July 16, 2008

Weight - 178.5 lb vs. 184.0 lb
BMI - 27.1 vs. 28.0
Fat % - 30% vs. 35.3%
Fat Mass - 53.5 lb vs. 65.0 lb

I'm making progress but I still have a lot of work to do. The hardest thing for me is staying away from junk food, so if anyone has any suggestions at all or recipes for somewhat healthy snack foods, please pass them along to me. I'm not talking about snacking on nuts, fruits and veggies. I'm talking about cake or cookie recipes that are low in fat and still taste good.

I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but I registered to do the Hampton's Half Marathon on September 27th and the Disney Marathon; my first full marathon on January 9th. I'm not worried about completing the half marathon, but I would like to complete it in 2:45. At this point I've never ran more than 13.1 miles at a time, so the thought of the full marathon makes me nervous. I really wanted to register for the half but it was all filled up, and for some reason unknown to me and without giving it any thought I clicked on the tab for the full marathon, so now I have four months to prepare to run 26.2 miles. Ugh...

MOSTLY ON TRACK

I know it's been a long time since I've logged in. I've been a bit preoccupied with the hole in my ceiling and then the water that came down onto my computer. To make a long story really short, the water that fell on my computer has disabled my period (also known as dot) button so every time you see one of those little punctuation marks you can be sure I had to paste it in.

I have however been keeping up with my exercising and as of this week I started the FIRST marathon training program. I know I said I'd wait until the end of the month, but I'm one of those people that need structure in their lives. Somewhere along the line I'll just repeat a couple of weeks to make up for the extra few weeks at the end. Eating and nutrition is still a problem for me so I bought a book called The Eat Clean Diet by Tosca Reno. I do a lot of reading on the Internet about working out and weight training, and one thing that keeps being mentioned is eating clean, so I decided to learn more about it and to give it a try. It seams that eating clean is basically a lot of fresh fruit and veggies, protein, whole grains, no sweets and eating about 6 times a day. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying it, but right now that's all I can tell you since I haven't actually read the book yet. I've only skimmed through it. My plan is to read it while I'm on vacation and then to grocery shop and get started when I get back.

My sister has been exercising with me and has lost 6 pounds so far. I don't know how many inches she lost but I can definitely see a change. (Woo hoo) I plan to post a new set up pictures of myself around the end of the month or early September and I really hope you guys can see a change.

We've basically been alternating between cardio and strength training, I started with five pound dumb bells then moved to seven and now I'm using the eight pound weights. Since I just started using the eight pound weights this week they're quite challenging but a challenge is good, right?

Oh yeah, how can I forget to mention that I'm down to about 180 pounds and a loose fitting size 12. Go me!

OK - it's late and tomorrow's workout is a six mile run that I'd really like to do in the morning before work so over and out folks.

SINFULLY DELECTABLE

Between July 21st and August 3rd my family has 3 birthdays. That translates into at least 3 cakes and at least 3 servings of ice cream, but since I like both cake and ice cream I can assure you that I had far more than my 3 servings of each - and yes, now I'm paying for it. Instead of losing weight, I've gained about 2 pounds. Needless to say, I'm pretty glad the birthday season in my house is over. Oh, and on top of the cake and ice cream that we have in the house, and on top of the cake that a friend made at work, there's also the free ice cream from Coldstone Creamery when you join their birthday club. Seven and a half ounces of a delicious creamy ice cream creation, and I went for the gusto. I had the Cookie Doughn't You Want Some - vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips, cookie dough, fudge and caramel. It started out tasting like heaven, but toward the end the guilt was hitting me hard, I really wanted to stop but I just couldn't do it. I ate it all. If you'd like to sign up for the birthday club yourself, then here's the link. http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/mycs/myCS_pub_home.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fmycs%2fmyCS_priv_home.aspx

The good news is that I have been working out. I just have to work a lot harder on the nutrition aspect. It's much easier to go out and jog a few miles or to strength train than it is to change your eating habits. I like to snack all day long. I'll have to get more healthy snacks to eat at work.

If anyone has any ideas for healthy and tasty snacks, please send them to me. I like fruit, but I can't just eat fruit.

Two Days with Six Tenage Girls

Today is my daughters 15th birthday, so to celebrate my sister and I decided to take her with five of her closest friends to the Poconos for the weekend. I thought it would be a bit chaotic, a little bit of attitude, maybe even some bickering but it turned out to be the total opposite. There was no chaos, no attitude and no bickering at all. It was an enjoyable, drama free and thankfully uneventful weekend with six teen aged girls. I on the other hand am feeling a little bit guilty. I let the girls eat a lot of cake and ice cream, chips, cookies, and Philly Cheese Steak and not one vegetable was to be seen for the entire weekend. I somehow convinced myself that the fried peppers and onions on the Philly Cheese Steak and the onions and peppers in the eggs counted as servings of veggies. Oh wait, what about the ketchup that some of them put on their macaroni and cheese? Does that count? Well, I've also managed to convince myself that it was only for a weekend, it was barely 48 hours, and in those barely 48 hours my daughter was happy spending time away with her girlfriends and I was happy watching her be happy. I can only hope that when she grows up she doesn't forget the joy of spending time with her favorite girlfriends.
Oh, and if you were wondering, yes I did work out in the gym at the resort. I worked out in their old, tattered, hardly maintained gym.