Day 42, Third Weigh-in

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. I started out week 5 with a major plateau and worked with my trainer to tweak a few things in order to maximize my metabolism. The biggest change is eating/drinking little amounts every 2-3 hours and drinking tons of water. Yes, I live in the bathroom. I've been reading a lot about fitness and nutrition and the importance of revving up the metabolism. The worst thing to do is skip meals or drastically reduce the number of calories (under 800) a day. I do for a fact know that I am getting stronger and that I am gaining muscle. I've lost 4 inches off my abdomen, which is my significant trouble spot. I got my box out of storage with the smallest size I kept and everything fits! It will be time to go shopping soon!

My phone, lights and the mirror do not always cooperate, but here is a progress picture and one from the first day. Can you see a change?



Day One: Jan 17th

 

Day 42: Feb 28th

Here are the results of the weigh-in tonight: 

After six weeks on this program I've lost 21.5 pounds. I'm now 13th on the rankings list from my gym.

From my highest weight I've lost 60.5 pounds. Wow!

I'm not quite on target to reach my 50 pound/90 day goal, but I'm not too discouraged as I know I'm doing all I can and not cheating or skipping work-outs. Even if I don't make it to 50 by April 17th, I will make it in 2012 and that's all I need!

Not Too Shabby

I guess some others are hitting plateaus! I only dropped one spot. The woman at #1 is this smallish 40ish Middle-Eastern or Indian woman. We are all flabbergasted by her success. Did she have a baby right before? Is she on a liquid diet? Is she exercising all-day, every day? The mystery continues...
She can't possibly keep losing much more! I love stuff like that 'cause it motivates our team to do better. We have 6 in the top 20 now...
and shout out to James, #6 who is in his fifties and held a plank in a competition Monday night for 5 minutes and won us first weigh-in. He held it for 2 minutes longer than J.C. and we all know what he looks like...:) Way to go James! And go team J.C.!!!

Day 27, Second Weigh-In

So, the bad news is purely numbers… 4.5 pounds down since weigh-in #1. The good news is, for the month, I’m down 17 pounds, I’ve lost several inches in the core area and I went down a pant size. I can feel my muscle mass getting stronger (I can truly say I love my shoulders) and my trainer worked my upper body and core to my max yesterday and I’m hardly sore this morning! I also love that my team is getting closer. We were cheering each other on last night and seeing some great results. It is fun to have that camaraderie among people with similar goals.

I hope everyone feels the love this Valentine’s Day. I am grateful for my family, my health and the serving of bread and chocolate I am allowing myself today. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Oh, My Aching Knees!

So much exercise has led to a not-so-fun side-effect: knee pain! I even started crying during training yesterday and once the waterworks start I can't stop. My trainer was great...knew to leave me alone for a bit then give me a pep talk on how far I've come. I suppose I am feeling the pressure as my official weigh-in is tomorrow and I know that my weight loss has slowed down. Frustrating!

I took the day off of the gym today and had a nice walk with my family outside.  No matter what the scale says tomorrow, my #1 goal for the following 2 weeks is to find some balance between training and over-training. I don't want to feel this stressed anymore. The good news is the old me would have gone straight for a pint of Haggen-Dazs. The new me talked and sobbed to my hubby and let him give me all sorts of reasons why what I'm doing is worth it! Love you, honey!

Goal Check-in

In my first biggest loser post I listed 6 goals. I thought it would be good to check in with those as I head into the next two weeks.

Goal 1) Lose 50 pounds in 91 days.

I’m on my way! My average at each weigh-in needs to be 8.33333 to hit this goal. One thing I would like to change about the first two weeks is not weighing myself so much. I stressed myself out with this last week and I think it would be better just to stay on plan and weigh myself once a week. Let’s see if I can do it!

Goal 2) Use the Yoli Better Body System daily for 91 days www.yoli.com

Yoli is a company my brother and his partners started to promote health and well-being. This fall they launched their Better Body System. The system is a complete way to lose weight and get healthy. I have rarely found a meal replacement shake that I can tolerate, but I have found the Y.E.S. shakes mixed with 5 ounces of non-fat milk and 5 ounces of unsweetened almond milk to be quite good, especially the vanilla. I do have to take an occasional break because the Stevia sweetener gets to me after a while. So far though, I attribute a great deal of my weight-loss to the BBS plan.

Here's the plan that I stuck to pretty closely in the first two weeks. I had a bit of a rough start getting off the carbs, but now I really have to remind myself when it's time to eat and make sure I'm taking in enough calories! I also do some fruit, especially when I know I have a big workout that day. Occassionally I will crave something sweet, but it's usually in the evening and is just an old habit rather than being hungry. I had one sugar free dark chocolate jello pudding when I just couldn't stand it anymore! I had to take a picture of my book so it didn't turn out. To take a better look download the pdf. http://yoli.com/images/YoliBetterBodySystem.pdf

Goal 3) Take Yoli and dotFit supplements for 91 days.

I have a big plastic container to separate all my meds and supplements and so far I’ve remembered to take them (usually) at the right time. I feel like an old person when I fill it up each week, but it helps me remember...

Goal 4) Train with J.C. once a week and do resistance one more time each week on my own or with a partner and 2 boot camps twice a month...YIKES!

This is an area that I am being challenged in because J.C. is working me harder than before. I am grateful for that, because I would never know I could do that much on my own. Also, he increased our group boot camp sessions to weekly…not sure how I feel about that yet.

Goal 5) Do 180 minutes of cardio per week

I rocked this area. I love spinning and also did other cardio workouts over the weeks. I think I worked out every day for 2 weeks, some with less intensity, but that is still great for me.

Goal 6) Stretch and meditate daily for 91 days

I definitely stretch multiple times a day and especially after a workout. The meditation is one thing I kind of let go a bit. I have some mp3 guided meditations on my iPhone and love to listen to them before bed. I’ve been pretty tired at night and also trying to keep up with other aspects of my life, so sometimes I slip. I know I feel more relaxed and stress-free when I do it.

Finally, here are the “rankings” list from my gym from last night. I’m really happy that I made the top 10 out of about 130 people! Off to week three!