End of Week 2 & week 3 Recap

Towards the middle of Week 2, I decided it was time to add some range to my workouts. At this point I was only doing cardio on the treadmill. I didn’t want my body getting used to the same muscle groups being used and I wanted to try something fun. 

I decided to Google and the first thing I came across was jumping rope. We have one and after seeing the benefits, I decided I would start off each workout day with it. It’s great cardio that works the whole body and burns calories in less time. It helps with bone density, agility, balance and coordination. Plus it’s great for the heart and a more efficient cardiovascular workout than jogging! I started small with only doing 30 seconds and am now doing a full minute before my workouts. 

The second thing I tried was rollerblading. I bought blades about a year and a half ago and haven’t used them. From what I was reading, you can get the same benefits as running but it’s easier on the body. I got the younger two in the stroller and went around my neighborhood. The road was too rough and the wheels were getting caught so we ended up on the sidewalk. The problem was just getting going and then having to cross a street. I couldn’t just go! On the way home I was really worn out and barely made it home. I wouldn’t mind trying again but I’d have to find a decent place to do it. 

After that fail, it was time to add in weight training. Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat does. My brother was also telling me that with cardio, you burn while doing it but with weight training, you keep burning calories up to 24/48 hours after doing it. At the end of Week 2, I was trying to switch days between cardio and the next day weight training. This continued into Week 3 with a random rest day as needed. 

I started Week 3 weighing one pound more than the day before. I know I shouldn’t weigh myself daily but I can’t help it. I also had my first cheat meal. After being strict for 15 days I decided to grab sushi. No guilt here about it. There has to be a balance. I’m working hard to reach my goals but I am still going to enjoy a meal here and there within reason. I also go by something my brother says; "Make it a cheat meal, not a cheat day. A cheat day could ruin a whole weeks worth of progress."

My brother has been my rock through all of this. Halfway through Week 3 and I was feeling a little defeated. The pound I had gained was not coming off and I was working out daily, eating clean with only one cheat meal and just crushing it in general. He has lost a ton of weight, built a ton of muscle and now working on reaching a 12% body fat. After talking about not dropping any weight, he sent me a video and it really put things into perspective. Titled; Lifting Weights & Not Losing Weight. It goes on to explain when you first start using weights, your muscles will store glycogen, energy for your muscles. When you store glycogen, you are going to store some short term water weight. Also when you workout you tear your muscle fibers apart which lead to inflammation. This also stores some short term water weight. But after about 3-5 weeks, the water weight will start to go away. 

This really changed my attitude for the week. I know I am making progress even if it is not on the scale. I am doing things that are great for my body and the scale should not be an end all be all for my motivation and goals. I ended Week 3 yesterday with my weigh in and I was still up that pound. I am okay with it! I’m still at a five pound loss for the month, with one more week to go. I worked out for seven days straight so that I could close out all three rings on my Apple Watch to earn a Perfect Week badge. Only to realize this morning that it has to be from Monday- Sunday. I’m okay with that too! It was a great motivation and gives me something to work towards next week. I’ve even noticed some non-scale victories. My stomach and chest both look smaller when I look down, as well as in the mirror. I’ve also noticed a huge difference in cellulite. I had a lot on my legs and hips and it is almost completely gone. I’ll take that as a win for this week. At the end of my next week I’ll be taking measurements along with my weigh in and I’m excited to see the difference off the scale. 

Finding My Balance

As I start Week 3, I wanted to share what my schedule looks like, how I fit it in with young kids and finding new ways to balance it with an ever changing schedule. 

At the beginning of the month, my oldest started school and my SO went back to work. I started with my workouts only while he was home but this left me doing them typically in the evenings. This just didn’t work for me. I did commit to do them but by the end of the day I’m a little more run down. It takes a lot more effort for me to want to go do it. So I switched it. 

My new schedule looks like this: We all get up really early except my oldest that I wake up at 7. I get the kids fed, dressed, vitamins and teeth brushed as well as pack my oldest lunch. We go drop him off for school and then I set the younger two up in the living room. This means I get them a drink, a snack, turn on a movie and give them an iPad. I realize it’s maybe not the best but this allows me to get in the garage to workout. I take my supplements, eat breakfast and change. I prop the garage door open so I can hear them and they can come and go as needed. They usually spend the first 15-20 minutes in the living room then come join me in the garage for the remainder. I take a few minutes to cool off after then bring them upstairs to play while I shower. 

We’ll, this week my middle child started PreK. She gets dropped off with my oldest but only goes for a couple hours. I once again needed to change things up. I work out after I drop them off. I have enough time to workout, eat and get showered and dressed in time to go pick her up. It’s been an adjustment with the babe but he’s done really well after the first day. 

What I’m trying to say is this, when you start, don’t get caught up in how you think things should go. Make your plan and if it doesn’t work for you, find a way that it does. It’s a learning process so take the time to find the things that work for you and please don’t compare your journey with anyone else. I see so many articles about getting up at 5 am or going after the kids are in bed and that would never work for me. So now I just choose what I can be consistent with and I make it work for me!

Week Two Summary

It is Wednesday and around here this means it is time to weigh in. Before I share my results, I just want to say there is a ton of info I want to share about this week. I will most likely be breaking it down into two posts. At that point I will be caught up and able to share my process on a more daily basis as apposed to the weekly recaps. But lets get to the good part!

I started the month at 188. Last week I weighed in at 183.4 for a total of 4.6 pounds lost. Today I weighed in at 182, a 1.4 pound loss this past week. The grand total being 6 pounds this month. I have two more weeks left but have already passed my monthly goal of 5 pounds. I know as I get closer to my goal, it will become harder to lose as much so I am glad for a little wiggle room right now.

I have a running list of goals on my phone that I will be adding to my Goals tab next for you all to follow along with over the next year. Some small, short terms goals and some longer ones to help keep me going.

At the start of this week, I had been doing a lot of research on vitamins and supplements. I decided to switch up from a multivitamin and focus on individual supplements. Every morning I am now taking Omega-3, Green Tea Extract, a pre/probiotic, Magnesium and Apple Cider Vinegar gummies.

Sorry for the technical difficulties. I have changed the size of the following photo but it does nothing. But I wanted to share it for the accountability aspect. Here it shows the days I logged workouts on my Apple Watch. Starting last week with the 6th, 7th, 8th & 10th. Then this week I've done the 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th & 16th. I think this is something I would like to share at the end of each week for that extra push.

Below, I am sharing one of the programmed workouts on my treadmill. I came across Program2: Fat Burn and just fell in love with it. I started on Level 1 just to give myself a starting point. They all start with a warm up of 4 minutes. This is a slow walk before you get into the actual program. I set it to last for 30 minutes. After the warm up, you can see, it has 8, 30 second segments. It starts a little faster than the warm up, builds up to a peak and then comes back down. after the 8 segments it cycles back through 1-8 again and again until 30 minutes has passed. The incline also changes with the speeds. What I love about this program is I can build up my endurance from walking to full on running at the Level 10. It reminds me a lot of the Couch to 5K program, although I really enjoy this one more. 

Level 1 was honestly too easy for me but I did the whole 30 minutes. That to me was most important. I can get on the treadmill and try to run my best mile but I would be tired, out of breathe and at tops, I'd be on there for maybe 14 minutes. This doesn't get my body into that peak fat burning zone. Also, with this program, if it's harder one one speed, I know it only lasts for 30 seconds. I can push through for that long and as it slows down, I can catch my breathe before it comes back again.

I tried Level 1, it was too easy. The next time I bumped up to Level 2 and I believe I did it two or three days. I told myself I would make sure I could do a Level with ease for the full 30 minutes before moving onto the next Level. This ensures I make it the full 30 minutes. I then bumped up again to Level 3. I have done it 2 or 3 times now but the last time I did it, yesterday, I also bumped up my time to 35 minutes. I would eventually like to get to 45 minutes and I figure that would be easier on me to do at the easier levels. So I may stay on Level 3 for a bit longer to add the extra time in and get comfortable going for that long.

That's about it for this post. It's getting a little long. I will cover the rest of this week in my next one. I will be going over to my Goals tab at the top of this blog to work on that, update my weight and post some before pictures and measurements.

Week One Summary

I started this week with small goals in mind. You can find those in my previous post. Because I started on the first of the month and like to weigh in on Wednesdays, my first “week” was actually ten days long. 

The quickest change in goals happened when I started tracking my calories. On day one I realized just how much I was consuming and quickly made changes. I grocery shop for two weeks at a time and had already bought groceries. With some changes to our meal plans, I was able to take what we had and turn them into healthy meals. On top of that I decided to stay around 1200 calories a day and to my surprise, was able to do it the whole week. Was it easy, no. There were cravings and moments where I felt hungry. I was eating smaller portion sizes and if I felt hungry, I allowed myself to eat as many vegetables as I wanted. To help with feeling hungry, I also chose meals high in protein and fiber so that I felt fuller for longer. 

In addition, I cut out all drinks besides my morning coffee and water. This was pretty easy for me as I actually love water. 

If you don’t have an Apple Watch, it has three goals or rings to close out everyday. One being calories burned, an exercise goal and a standing goal, as well as tracking my steps. Observing the first few days gave me a starting point. Without working out my steps were low. I made the goal of reaching 4,000 a day. The stand goal is once every hour for one minute. For that I set my goal at 12. The exercise goal is set in minutes. It tracks your active moving. This is different from just a walking movement. To get into a fat burning range, I knew that I wanted to be active for at least 30 minutes once I started my workouts. Lastly, the move goal that tracks calories burned. It was already set to 400 and not really knowing how much I burned a day, I left it there. 

To top off the last few days of my ten day week, we bought a treadmill. During the pandemic, my SO started a home gym in the garage. Little by little he added to it. Well when we PCSed last month, all the hardware was missing. So the weight bench is currently not assembled but I can still use the weights. I’ve always preferred cardio and the treadmill has been an amazing tool to have at home. I’ll talk more about that in my next post!

To finish off the ten days, I weighed in for the first time. I weighed in at 183.4. This is a 4.6 pound loss. With a goal of 5 pounds a month, I don’t have far to go over the next couple of weeks. If I end up losing more this first month, it just allows me more wiggle room on a slower month. 

Finding It In Myself

 August 1-9, 2022

There is no shame in my game. I am yet again, starting over. I know. I know. I’ve been here dozens of times. Starting over. I get that motivation and lose it just as quickly. 

This time I started out a little differently. I typically start here, on the blog, to try and muster up some motivation and accountability. Instead, I found my motivation at the end of July, started up in August and have been going strong since. Because I have stuck through the first couple of weeks, I figured it was time to get back on here and give it another shot. 

As mentioned, I found my motivation. Again, something completely different but it’s working. My SO and I were talking about planning a cruise sometime in the next year or two. We started pricing things out and one thing led to another. We had this idea and turned around and booked a cruise for December 2023! We have both been once before, not together and well over ten years ago. To say I am excited is an understatement. 

I’m going to be completely honest here, one of my first thoughts after it was booked was… I was overweight last time and I would love to be at a comfortable weight this time. Oh and wear cute bathing suits! That was all it took. From there I set a start date of August 1st. I weighed myself, took my measurements and set some small goals for that week. 

To start off this journey, I weighed in at 188 pounds. I then decided on my goal weight of 143 pounds. Why the odd number you may be wondering? I met my husband somewhere between 140-145. It wasn’t my smallest but I was really happy at that weight. This gives me a total of 45 pounds to lose. I then had to set my deadline. Originally I said a year but after thinking of my goals it changed to May. Nine months. That is still completely obtainable at 5 pounds lost a month. My reasoning for the change is simple really. I want to buy all new bathing suits for the cruise. They come out as early as March and only last until about the end of June. If for any reason I haven’t reached my goal by May, I will then readjust for a full year but for now I’m giving myself 9 months. 

My first weekly goals were simple changes. I wanted to start off slowly and build momentum from there. I have a tendency to jump all in and burn out quickly. I’ve got all the motivation for now but I want to keep it going this time and honestly, that is the hardest of all of this. Finding new ways to keep motivated is hard and the excuses can easily become a roadblock. 

Week 1 Goals:

1. Wear my Apple Watch daily. I’ve never liked wearing watches but it is convenient to have my steps tracked, set goals and get reminders for those goals throughout the day. 
2. Increase water intake. I have a Hydrojug that holds 73 oz. This week I just wanted to finish one a day. 
3. Significantly reduce drinking my calories. I love coffee and I won’t ever be giving that up. However, to meet in the middle, I’ve been only having one cup a day with a serving size (2tbsp) of creamer. I prefer less creamer than most but it was still a decent amount more and after so many cups it really adds up. No more Dr. Pepper…
4. Start tracking my calories via MyFitnessPal again. It’s common knowledge that you have to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. I am not focusing on that just yet. Instead, become more mindful of what I am already consuming on a daily basis.
5. Track daily steps. I’d love to get in 10,000 steps a day and I will work up to that for sure but for now I’ll start at 4,000. I have no idea how much I normally get but it’s a starting point. I’ll bump up as needed. 

That’s it. Keeping it simple and not rushing into anything. I’m in it for the long haul and as they say; It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Can’t wait to share how this week went, my first weigh in and my second week. All coming soon.