Exercise Overload?

Tuesday 2/2/10

So right off I will say I did watch Lost instead of Biggest Loser. And it was totally worth it! I Love that show!!

Today was good. I ate pretty well. At work they give the kids ice cream sandwiches or fruit bars once a week. So today I was totally thinking of taking one, an ice cream sandwich sounded so good. I don't think I am really supposed to take them but they offer them to me friday when we give them to the pre-K I work with at lunch time. I usually turn it down. Anyways, so I clocked out for my lunch break and they were right there in the kitchen freezer but I totally just pushed the idea aside and walked straight to the break room. I was so proud of myself!

Now for dinner I did have nachos. I know not so healthy. But I ate them in a bowl to limit the amount I ate (the plates were all dirty) so corn chips, cheese, chicken, and salsa. All in reasonable portions, I know I didn't over due it like i sometimes do so not too bad. I was just tired of chicken and rice or chicken wraps and wanted something different. This evening I actually stopped by Whole Foods. I usually buy all my stuff from Fry's. They have the different organic and nutritious foods I have been looking for. The only thing they don't seem to have is less processed meat. So I stopped at whole foods and they have some no preservative, no hormone, pasture fed beef, chicken and turkey. They have it frozen, which is how I prefer, I am not a big cook. The prices are of course a little higher which I don't mind for healthier meat. The only bad side is I can't microwave it. But pulling out a cookie sheet and heating it up in the oven isn't a huge deal. Plus they have some chicken strips that can be microwaved which will be quick when i am making a chicken wrap. I did again have ice cream tonight but measured it out so it was only a serving, again yea me!

So with my stop at Whole Foods I ended up eating dinner at 7pm so I watched the recap episode of Lost. Then the premier was on from 8-10. I had my ice cream about half way through there. Afterwards I turned the tv off so I could exercise. I again wanted to do something more than just walking. So I put in my Biggest Loser Cardio Mix dvd. There are some positives and negatives to these. The great thing is the way they have you work up your intensity. They have you start at 20 min for the first 2 weeks, then 30 min for weeks 3-4, and then 40 min for weeks 5-6. I think this is a great option for beginners because you really do have to start slow. The exercises are intense having both cardio and weights being used. I was definitely sweating within the first 15 min. Which I don't always sweat on my WAP videos. I know I have been exercising for a couple weeks now so I tried to do the entire 40 min. I am proud to say I was successful! There were a few things I had trouble with; push-ups, plank positions, jumping jacks. But it always had options for me so I could do a variation of the exercise. Now the bad part. Each section has one of the trainers and several of the BL contestants. It is clear they filmed the video half way through taping the show as they are at partial physical ability. Sometimes the trainer stops doing the exercise to check the form of the contestants. This often creates confusion with the contestants as to if they should continue or stop and then at what speed to continue at. The trainers are also not the best at communicating how many are left, when to change, when to continue. I am an avid workout video watcher so I kind of expect these things. But worse than confusing me this confuses the contestants so they are often not all doing the same thing. They may have done this to make us feel more comfortable, since they aren't perfect either, but I find it frustrating to be confused so often. I think with repetition I will memorize the exercises and change without prompts but at first it is hard. Actual it was kind of funny. At the like 30 min mark, so the last exercise of the stage 2 workout the exercise is so difficult the contestants can't even do it. A couple like really try and mostly fail and then the trainer try's to make it more difficult which is just funny to see them try to do. It is also obvious none of the 4 have even tried the exercise before. I did try but it involved balancing on my butt in like a V shape while pushing legs out. The first way has your arms down as anchors and then hard without your arms down. I don't, it was hard but funny.

After the video I wanted to a little more so I went over to the wii fit plus. I love it because I can alternate between cardio and like balancing exercises. So I get my heart rate up with stepping or something and then kind of take a break while trying to juggle while standing on a ball. I got about 15 min done or so, about 100 cal. Then I did the bike riding option. Now with this you are really just walking in place on the wii bored. Each step is a peddle and so you step faster when going up a hill and sometimes stop walking when coasting down hill. Anyways I like this because it is fun to ride around the island they created looking for flags. As you go along they add tougher rides. At this point I had 4 levels of difficult the highest being expert. I wasn't sure I really wanted to do that but I hadn't tried it yet so I went for it. I knew I was crazy when I had only gotten 10 out of 20 flags and I was already at 4 miles. As I said this was level 4 at level 2 I completed the course in 4 miles. But I kept going wanted to finish it and interested to try and find the flags. It is kind of set up like a maze to try and find them all. Eventually my brother goes "Are you still exercising?" I said yes and explained I didn't mean to be going so long. I was actually grabbing my last flag at the time and heading to the finish line. Turns out I went a little over 11 miles and it took me 44 min. It honestly didn't feel like that long while i was doing it but I can totally see why my brother asked me about still exercising. On the wii I did a total of 71 min and I think 373 calories. Even after a long shower I can feel some tension in my back so we will see how I feel tomorrow. Tomorrow is wed so I am not sure if I will get any exercise in. It is so late already maybe I will go to bed early tomorrow night.

Summary: Ate good, resisted temptations. Did a 40 min intense video and 71 min on the wii

Monday Monday

Monday 2/1/10

So I just want to do a quick post with an update from today. I did great with my food. I even went grocery shopping today and I everything I bought is toward my new health goal. Now I have been craving ice cream, I haven't had any for 3 weeks. Partly because it is my greatest food addiction and partly because when I try to have a little I tend to start craving more sugar. But I wanted to make sure I didn't wind up at a Dairy Queen binging (I see them everywhere lately) so at the store I bought a pint of Haggen-Dazs chocolate chocolate-chip. It has like 6 ingredients so more natural and it is only a little. Tonight I got out my measuring cup and a small bowl and measured out just 1/2 a cup plus 1/2 cup of cool whip. It was great! It met the craving I had and I didn't have much of a problem wanting more (well after I put my dirty bowl away to stop reminding me about it.) So it was a great day food wise.

I wasn't sure I was going to exercise today but I was feeling good and had some time so I did. I was feeling a little bored with my walking videos but I have several others. I actually have 4 Biggest Loser video's and a video from The Firm, it was on an infomercial forever ago. I showed them to my dad and he randomly choose The Firm. Now honestly out of the five he had to choose this is the most difficult but I decided to do it anyways. I popped it in and got to work. The cardio session I chose was 55 min and it is very intense. I made it about 20 min and felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest. I took a break for a couple min and tried to start again. I got maybe 5 min and then I just couldn't do it. My heart was beating so fast it just seemed stupid to keep it up. So I only made it 25 min but overall I am proud. I remember when I have tried this video before and I only got about 10 min in. I can definitely tell my WAP videos and wii fit plus have increased my physical ability. I wanted to keep exercising though so I moved over to one of my Walk Away the Pounds dvd's. I did one mile but it was advanced so it definitely kicked my butt. So in total only 40 min of exercise but I know that it was 40 min at a higher level than I have been going. And hopefully one day, not too far away, I will be able to get through the entire Firm video.

Now I do have to say I am very conflicted about tomorrow night. Watching Biggest Loser has been a motivational to help me exercise while it is on. But Lost starts tomorrow and I am a huge Lost fan. Tomorrow from 7-8 Lost is a recap and BL is a rerun and then they pitted the 2 hr BL right against the 2-hr premier of Lost. I looked up next weeks schedule and it looks like Lost will stay in the 8-9 hour which is against the second half of BL. So what do I do? I am leaning toward BL because it has a week delay in going online and Lost is available the next day. But my brother will be watching Lost in the next room so I don't know how I will handle that. The other thing is I don't think I will want to exercise at the same time. It is always just so excited and so many things going on it would be hard to watch two screens at once. Ahhh! I don't know. I think I have just convinced myself to watch Lost since every week I will have the 7-8 hr open to exercise plus half the time I exercise after 10pm anyways since I am a night owl. I will let you know my final decision tomorrow.

An odd Sunday

Sunday 1/31/10

Cliff notes version: My eating was off today but I did get in 4 miles with my Walk Away the Pounds dvd's.

Longer version:

Today I woke up late so I grabbed something for breakfast (8:15am) but it was like 200 cal instead of my normal 300-400 cal. I had a kids party to go to from 1-3 so when I got home from church (Noon) I had some yogurt so I could have some pizza at the party. At the party Tirso didn't really understand what was going on and didn't want to sit to eat with the other kids. He had eaten some yogurt when I did so I wasn't sure he was still hungry so I wasn't going to force him. I got myself a small slice (1:45pm) and then he wanted to share the slice with me. So I had about half of a small slice of Barros Pizza. Tirso was of course excited as soon as he saw the cake so I got him a piece and he had a bite or two (plus the 5 m&m's off the top.) It looked really good but I didn't want to tempt myself by trying to just have a bite or two so I went with none. I got home from my sisters at about 6pm. I was so tired I don't know why but I can't really take naps, it messes me up and then I can't sleep at night. So I had a can of soda and dinner, chicken and rice. Later in the evening while watching tv I was hungry so I ate a cheese stick but wasn't satisfied so I also ate a 100 cal popcorn bag. Over all I don't think I ate too many calories in fact I think I ate two few and at weird times. Then I also had some greasy pizza and greasy popcorn which is probably why my stomach has been upset for a couple hours now. I haven't had anything really greasy for a week now. Maybe it is something else though, I was playing at a children's center where germs are everywhere plus it was kind of stressful hanging out with extended family members that I don't usually talk too. I always get nervous about that kind of stuff. My lesson from today is I need to take the time to eat the right amount of food. I don't think the saving calories to eat pizza was bad but when I didn't have enough I should have had a quick snack available to eat on the way home or when I got to my sisters house instead of just waiting for dinner.

I had such a problem exercising tonight. I was sooo tired when i got home but I knew I had to get some exercise in. The first thing I tried was popping in my movie from Netflix. I had "Gamer" to watch, but it was very visual so I kept trying to do a video while i watched but then I kept missing things. So I sat down and watched it (this is when I ate the cheese and popcorn.) So then I tried to do the video while watching something from my Hulu queue. There is plenty in it that I don't really have to pay attention to so started one. I got 1 mile done but that was a struggle and just failed at trying to move to mile 2. This next part I am so proud of!!! I knew I needed to exercise. I knew it was so much more important than whatever tv show I wanted to watch. So I stopped the show, put my laptop to sleep, unmuted my tv and did 3 more miles. They were so hard, there was 1 mile I hadn't done before focusing on legs by adding lunges and squats. It was crazy! But I pushed through, did them all and managed to do a tummy toning mile after that. So yea 4 miles again. I don't know if I will do anything tomorrow. I think if I do it will be on the wii fit plus to try and mix it up a bit. Plus I already feel like I am going to be sore tomorrow when I wake up. Plus I want to be able to work out during The Biggest Loser on Tuesday so I don't want to push too hard on Monday. Anyways I don't think the day was too bad but I can see where I can improve. Now off to bed.

Week 1 - 3 lb loss

Week Review:

So I finally weighed in, I was totally excited. Honestly I probably shouldn't be because my pants felt the same way but I had worked so hard this week and ate so well so I had a good feeling about it. So I totally lost 3 lbs this week! Yea me!!

I know I could have worked out more this week. Also now that I have started working out I can see that it is getting easier to work harder and longer. So this week I would like to get in more exercise. I think I did well with my eating. This week I think I want to actually track what I am eating and make sure my calories are at the right spot. I have enough experience I can pretty much estimate calories in my head so I think I am good. But it won't hurt to check. I am also go to also be checking fat, sugar, and protein to make sure they are all in reasonable levels as well.

I do know that 3lbs is a lot and so I should not expect this amount every week. My actual goal is 1 lb per week but would love 2 lbs. I have a lot to loose and know that I also need to be watching more than just my weight but my waist size and how I feel. My wii fit plus does track my waist size so I add that in today and will hopefully watch that shrink as well.

Saturday 1/30/10

Today I babysat my nephew. I brought one of my WAP dvd's with me but did not end up doing it there. I did pack my own lunch so I brought that along and ate healthy all day. As soon as I got home (before dinner) I weighed myself because I was so excited to see. I will need to pay attention to this in future weeks of weighing in the same time. At that point I ate a good dinner (yesterday leftovers.) My dad came down today and my younger brother was over. My dad got a new computer so they were all talking and what-not in the kitchen. I didn't want to do a WAP video while they were right there, plus their was no tv shows on. So instead I got on the wii fit again. I exercised for 1 hr and about 325 calories. I have a desire to do more but visited with family instead. I am not sure how I could have avoided this challenge of having my house full. I don't really feel comfortable walking outdoors at night. I live in a bad neighborhood and I am not good at tracking my own speed or how far I have gone. Is that an excuse? I guess not if my safety is involved. It is not like this happens a lot though so I think this is just one of those things that get in the way. I still did some exercise on the wii anyways and know that I need to push myself tomorrow night or maybe actually work out at my sisters house. I wonder how Tirso would react to me working out. Guess I can always try and see.

A missed day

Friday 1/29/10

I don't know why but I didn't exercise today. I mean I had a great day at work, boss wasn't there and I was kind of in charge but everything went fine. I ate healthy although at work they were having a luau for some of the kids and I was in charge of grilling hot dogs. We had so many left overs and people kept telling me I should eat one. But I resisted, I was good. I was walking to my car after work and was thinking about what exercises I was going to do this evening and honestly I was excited about it. I haven't been sore all day, which is great. I was worried yesterday's workout would have been too much.

If you are a Biggest Loser fan then you are familiar with "the last chance workout." It is simply the last push before weigh in day. Well I have been anxious about weighing and I realized on my drive home that this evening was my last chance workout because I plan on weighing in on Sat night. I got home, at a great healthy dinner. Actually I was feeling happy about how I have been working out this week and wanted something special so I had stopped at Fry's and picked up a pizza. I looked through the different options. California Kitchen pizza isn't too bad but I wanted something better. Next I looked at a brand called Amy's they have all organic stuff so I knew their pizza would be healthy but I worried it might not taste good. Then I saw some Wolf Gang Puck pizza. It has organic whole grain crust and uses fresh, less processed meats and cheese. It was about the same price as the other two brands so I grabbed it. It was great! And I was so proud of myself. It is a small pizza like personal size but it was supposed to be 3 servings. I figured out the calories and figured half should be fine. I added a small side salad and it turned out to be the perfect amount of food. I knew it should be because I knew my calories. But I don't know I just am so glad that I just immediately pulled out two plates, after it cooked cut it and divided it in half. And now I have another great dinner for tomorrow evening.

But after all that I just laid on the couch for 3 hours watching tv. At one point I pulled out the WAP dvd and changed into my workout clothes but didn't get started. It still seemed early so then I popped in a movie, Surrogates it was really good, but I just never got the video started and up off my butt.

So now it is midnight and too late to exercise. I have to be to my sisters by 9:30 tomorrow morning and I need to get some sleep. I feel really disappointed in myself. Not necessarily because of how it will affect my weigh in tomorrow but more because I want to make this a routine. If I watch tv or movie I use the time wisely with some type of activity. I can't change what I have done today and honestly it wasn't that bad because I have a plus food wise so I won't beat myself up about this. But I want to learn from it, move on from it, and plan to exercise when I get home from my sisters tomorrow.

A Thursday Update

Wednesday 1/27/10
So as I had said in my last blog I didn't think I would work out on Wednesday and I was right. After work and church I kind of wanted to do something but my body felt really tired from the previous days workout so I gave myself a break.

Thursday 1/28/10
This morning when i woke up I decided to...let's say play a mental game with myself. As I said the plan is to not weigh in until saturday. I always weigh myself in the evening because it is a "truer" number. You probably know that if you weigh yourself in the morning it will be a lower number due to things such as the 8 hour fast you just had, water weight and food weight. So while getting dressed I stepped on my scale. Now it wasn't on the wii fit and of course I didn't write it down where I track my weight, it was just kind of to see and motivate. Anyways, it said I dropped 8 lbs. I would love to drop 8 lbs this week but I know that is silly. But it did work. I watched what I ate today and really wanted to eat some of the snacks I was feeding the kids today but I resisted. Go me!!

Then this evening I had to get my exercise on. I thought I had 3 hours of tv on but turns out everything was reruns. So I did a one mile walk (Walk Away the Pounds or WAP) while watching a new episode of Bones. Then went over to my brothers living room to get on the wii fit. I did 20 min of stair stepping for a total of about 2200 steps. Then my brother and sil came home so I gave them back their living room and went back to mine. I didn't feel this was enough and wasn't sure when my brother would go to bed so I could use the wii fit again so I popped in a movie "Taking Woodstock" and did 3 more miles with the WAP video.

I have 4 different videos each with multiple different types of miles on them. Today I did a video that included hand weights for 3 of the miles I did. I can definitely feel it in my arms. It feels good. I kind of want to do more because the exercise does make my body feel good but don't want to push myself. I have a long day at work tomorrow and don't want to be too sore or anything.

So I wanted to update you with my current happenings. Oh wait I was going to mention. I was thinking of adding a progress bar to my page. I don't how I will do it. Of course the standard way is to put how much weight I want to loose and then just move the bar to the total amount lost. But I think I might want to just say my current weight and goal weight, well maybe a 1 year goal weight, and put that down. Saying my real weight for all to see may be a little embarrassing but not really. If you are reading this then you have probably met me and know I am morbidly obese. Not sure which weigh I will go, guess we will see. But for now I am off to take a shower and then read part of my current motivational books, "Fat Chance" by Julie Hadden, she was on season 4 of The Biggest Loser. So far it has been major encouragement to get my butt moving!

Some positive

I was reminded again this morning while reading others blogs I do not always post the positive. So I wanted to do a quick post to let you know some positive. Last night while watching The Biggest Loser I took my laptop put it on top of the tv, popped in one of my Walk Away the Pounds dvd's and got my walk on. Although it is sometimes difficult to follow the dvd and watch tv I like how my body feels better with the dvd then the treadmill so I went this route. In totally I walked 3 miles. I did have about a 10 min break between mile one and two but with the show being 2 hours I was able to stay motivated the entire time. The miles on the dvd are about 14 min miles. I am pretty sure the second mile I did was faster but I am not sure.

Later in the evening I was watching Pandorum (scary movie) and I kept thinking about the wii fit program. It has this option to just use the board as a step, change the channel and the remote will keep beeping at you to help you keep pace while it counts your steps. I didn't really want to watch the movie in my brothers living room so I did the next best thing. I have steps that I use with The Firm workout. I pulled out the lower step (about 4 in high, about twice the hight of the wii board) and got to stepping. I don't know the exact number of steps but I watched the clock and stepped for a full 20 min making sure to switch the primary stepping leg every few min.

I am so proud of myself. Today is Wed and I have a full day because I go to church for a few hours after work so I knew I wouldn't get much exercise tonight. So I am glad I was able to do so much last night. Today my upper back/shoulders are a little sore but mostly I feel good. So go me!! :)