One Week Left

I have one more week of 21 Day Fix Extreme work outs.  They are great work outs, very challenging and even though I'm not able to do everything... I am able to enough to feel like I've gotten a good work out.  Again, some of my moves have to be modified more than their modified work out.  That's the thing I like about this series... it does have a person that's doing the modified version.  I ended up ordering the video's because I'm borrowing them from a neighbor and I liked them so much that I wanted my own.  $55 I feel is worth it if I use them enough... which I will, it'll be put in my rotation.

So what's next?  I'm not sure.  My thoughts are I either do my "The Firm" video program - which is 30 days, each work out is between 52 and 63 minutes.  Those are long work outs, but there's two days of rest within a week.  Which I like.  OR I do my Jillian Michaels 30 day Shred... which means no rest days (work outs without rest days are HARD).  This is about a 37 minute work out each day.

I have other options as well... My gym membership kicked back in this month (I haven't been there yet - boo!) so I could work in either a class, biking, treadmill or weights into my routine on top of these.

Now to the nitty gritty.  This past week was not my best.  Not even close.  I ate a lot of sweets and some other not so good food for me.  The good news is that I continued to do my work outs, tracked all my food (even if it wasn't pretty) and tried to compensate for those naughty times by eating better at my next meal.  I did end up losing 2.2 lbs this week.  Now that doesn't mean that the weight won't show up later (because it sure can); I was just happy that it didn't come up on the scale today.

Coming up this weekend I have some fun plans... and you know what fun means: hard food choices.  I have a friend and her girls coming to stay over Saturday night and then I'm hosting our annual girls Christmas party on Sunday.  This is an extremely fun event but it very much centered around food - the last few years the theme has been appetizers.  So typically those are not healthy choices.  I'm going to have to work very hard at not over eating.  The good part about the party is that it starts at 11 - which means that if I do end up eating like crap, I have a good part of the evening to make up for it.  I know that's what I'll do (I just know me).

Anyway - I'm just going to try and focus on being good all of the other days of the week.  That way - two days of festivities shouldn't really affect me if I keep up my work outs and eat right the rest of the time.  It's the 80/20 rule right???

Oh... another progress report I can give is since I started working out again at home (second week in September) I've now lost 29.6 lbs.  It's about 3 months time.  So remember that - hard work and good choices really does pay off... and I feel amazing.  I even want to fix myself up again -- wear make-up, do my hair and dress nice-ish (don't get me wrong, this girl loves her sweatshirts and yoga pants).

Well here's to another successful week under my belt.

I can't wait until I'm Healthfully Ever After!

I made it through Thanksgiving!!!

Well, we've made it through two holidays so far.  Halloween and Thanksgiving are under our belts!

I've also made it through a trip to New York City - where we walked anywhere from 8-10+ miles per day.  It was a fantastic trip!  Although the trip wasn't booked before I started Insanity, I viewed it as being my reward for getting myself back on track and sticking Insanity out until the end.  I'm still very very proud of that accomplishment.

So far, I have two special Christmas celebrations prior to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, two of which I'm hosting. Then factor in getting together with girlfriends for dinner around this time as well... Still many more challenges to face, but if I keep up what I've been doing I really shouldn't see any issues.

So you know I finished Insanity (I've mentioned that about a billion times now) and are possibly wondering what I've done since that ended on the 11th? Well, let me tell you...

Between finsihing Insanity (did I mention I finished Insanity??) and going to NYC, I had about 5 days between them.  I didn't want to start a new program but I also knew that I needed to continue working out.  So I took a day or two off (it's blurry to me) and then took out my Jillian Michael 30 Day Shred videos out and did level 2 for 3-4 days (still blurry).

When I got back from NYC I started my next work out video session the very next day.  21 Day Fix Extreme.  It's a 21 day in-a-row work out video set where there's a different work out each day.  They are not easy, but not as hard as Insanity (did I mention I finished Insanity???).  I'm 10 days in, almost half way.  I haven't missed any work outs in those 10 days (well I missed one, but made it up by working out twice one day later).  I've not seen as much weight loss with this program as I did with Insanity BUT I've also not tracked like I did while doing Insanity.  Mostly because I went to NYC for 5 days and then came back to Thanksgiving, Black Friday shopping, decorating, etc.  So I haven't had the time to plan as well as I did previously.  I still made meals and tracked most of the week days but the weekends have been more lax.

So  Last time I wrote I had given Insanity results of 25 lbs.  At this present time (I weighed in today after two weeks of being away from WW meetings) and I'm down another 2.6.  So 27.6 since the second week in September.  My total weight loss (from when I last started WW) is 53 lbs (that update is for the man I'm in competition with -- yes Jen told me Bob -- LOL).  I had a rough 2 1/2 years before I kicked it back in gear as my total was once 96 lbs.

I can't beat myself up about the weight I've gained back because I never gave up, I continued to go to WW meetings most every week, I would lose and gain and lose and gain (mostly gain obviously)... but I never gave up.  Sure, I was really unhappy with myself for letting go a bit... but I'm back on that wagon.  I can't give up.  I feel too good when I lose weight - not just my appearance but my body aches less, I have more energy and I'm really truly proud of myself when I can keep myself under control.

So, the lesson to learn is: NEVER. EVER. GIVE. UP.

I can't wait until I'm Healthfully Ever After!