Thursday, March 22, 2012

Workout of the Week: Abs & Arms

This is another one of the workouts i have been doing lately. It's pretty killer on the abs. Just once doing it and i was feeling the burn for days. This is definitely going to be on the top of my list as a workout to do to get beach ready. This workout doesn't include a lot of cardio so i suggest doing in along with some added cardio of your choice, i do it with aerobic step or Just Dance 3, and the whole workout can take me around 45-60 minutes or if i only do the Abs & Arms, 20 minutes. Youtube any moves you don't know and give it a try!

Weigh in - 3/19/12

What a week! I have been so busy that i have pretty much passed out by the time 10pm rolls around, and that is my prime internet time since all my kids are in bed. It's been nice to catch up on a little sleep but i have been severely neglecting my internet duties.

Let's start with this weeks weigh in...175! Yep, i am officially down to the lowest weight i have ever been. And when i say that, i don't mean that i was skinny as a teenager and then put on weight. Nope, i probably haven't been this weight since puberty or before. I am smaller now than i was at 13 years old and much much healthier. For that i can say that i am so proud of myself!

This also brings me to 20lbs lost with Weight Watchers, and 105lbs lost total. I am a whole new person and i love it.

I have 5 (ish) weeks left before my tropical vacation. I'm hoping to really push and lose 2lbs a week between now and then. To do so i have done a complete overhaul of my routine. I have been eating much cleaner. Cutting back on processed foods, trying to eat fruits and veggies as my snack and lunch, cutting out sugar, not bringing diet soda or juices into my home (although i will still have a soda out occasionally), avoiding cheese (this use to be an every day snack for me, now cutting back to a couple times a week), aaaand revamping my workouts! That's the exciting one!

So as part of a challenge i am doing with friends, i have posted a new workout every week for all of us to do. I posted one here and that was the "Sexy Legs" workout, and i have others that i will be posting. This is the last week of our current challenge and we are all working really hard to put up the best number possible for the week and end of the challenge. This weeks workout is called "The Savage" and it's pretty awesome, it's an exhaustion workout instead of reps, which means you can make it as difficult as you want. So this week my workouts have been "The Savage" in the mornings, Walking in the afternoons, and another workout in the evenings, either with my Wii or one of my dvd's. I'm hoping that this will really help boost my weight loss and build some of the muscle back that i lost when i was pregnant with my twins.

Another part of my new routine is something i already touched on, i'm getting more sleep! Which is incredibly important to weight loss. My friends and i have discovered that you can "gain" 2-3lbs just by getting a crappy night of sleep. That's motivation to get a really good nights sleep, especially right before weigh in day!

Hopefully this changing up of the routine helps. I'm happy with 1lb a week but i want to make sure i am doing everything possible to look and feel fantastic for my vacation. No Regrets!


Monday, March 12, 2012

Workout of the Week: Legs

Recently, along with everyone else, I have discovered Pinterest. I really really REALLY didn't want to fall into it, and for the most part I have stayed away. Because let's be honest, the last thing we need is yet another thing on the internet to get addicted to, and time is precious as it is! However a friend of mine posted a workout she found on Pinterest and it was a pretty slammin' workout so I decided to go check it out a little better and to my surprise I started finding some awesome inspiration for workouts. The only problem was that I was getting sick and tired of "stealing" everyone elses workouts or modifying them for myself. The simple solution? Come up with my own of course!


So I've been working on them slowly and every week I plan a new one and a group of my best friends do them right along with me. To date, my favorite has to be my lower body workout. I was unable to walk for a good two days after doing it, and I did it 5x in that first week! It killed! But it also blasted through some of that lower body flab that all of us hate and I've been losing some pretty good inches off of that part of my body finally.

Here's my lower body workout. Let me know if you try it and what you think!

PS. Youtube the moves that you don't know.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Supermom VS. Skinny Diva

It's no secret that i'm a mom. A big part of where i got my motivation was after Loralei was born, i wanted to be healthy for her, to show her a good example, and things just took off from there. Well right about now i am pulling my hair out, trying to find a healthy middle ground between Supermom and Skinny Diva.

It's hard.

Like this week. It's pretty much a complete wash on the Skinny Diva front. My kids - all 3 of them - have decided that this seems like a good week to give up sleeping. Because really, who needs it anyways?

Apparently not mommy!

I just spent 4.5 long hours attempting to get Jasper to sleep, 2.5 of those with him screaming and Loralei crying that she is scared of everything from ghosts to her fuzzy pink blanket. It's now 1am, and my kids JUST fell asleep. Unfortunately that leaves no time for my normal evening workout, and a lot of stress that makes me want to eat my feelings away. This is not a rare occurrence, unfortunately this is almost the nightly "norm" around here. I've come to accept it... my kids don't sleep.

But despite it all, all the stress, all the lack of sleep, all the lack of workouts. I refuse to give up. Sure a supersized Mcdonald's value meal sounds REALLY good right about now, because who doesn't feel better after throwing back 1350 artery clogging calories??? But, i said no. I refuse to stress eat my weight back. Because one day, my babies will sleep through the night (eventually...right?!) and i would prefer to already be skinny, so that i don't have to work 2x as hard when that time comes.

Through it all, i do have an amazing piece of news for myself this week. I'm officially back at my lowest reached weight ever, 176lbs, and ecstatic about it! Now i can move on and see some new numbers that  i've never seen on the scale before. Just have to keep soldiering on.

Nobody said it was easy...

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

It's not always about the number on the scale

When  you are trying to lose weight, the most important day of the week is Weigh in day. You plan your whole week around it, you countdown to it, you get excited/scared/nervous the night before. It's a really big deal. Those numbers you are going to wake up to can make you extremely happy or bum you out to the point that you are ready to give up.

So many of my dear friends - and myself included - are always super hard on themselves when they are putting so much effort into losing weight, only to be disappointed on weigh in day. We often forget that the scale isn't a tell-all for how we look and feel, it doesn't know everything. It's just a scale.

Do you take measurements? You should. Period.

(Thank you Jackie!)

If you've been in this game a while, you know all about the fact that a single pound of fat takes up more space on your body than a pound of muscle, but the scale doesn't know that. Your measuring tape does! And more importantly your clothing knows! Do not get down on yourself over a number, do not give up. Be proud that you can say you lived the absolute healthiest you could that week, and trust me, your body already knows it!

My weight loss has slowed down and i expected it would so i'm ok with it. I'm still trying to be in the best shape i possibly can be for my honeymoon. Last night i decided to try on some of my summer dresses to see what i could take with me since my honeymoon is only about 7 weeks away. Nothing fit. Nothing. Not a single darn thing! At first, i was really disappointed...My favorite dress - unwearable...but after a couple of minutes it dawned on me that i was able to wear these dresses at my lowest weight before, yet now, they hang on me. I never knew a stretchy fabric could hang on you, because well, when you are as big a girl as i was, you buy the stretchy fabric and just hope it can stretch far enough. So look at that, my point came full circle...my weight is the same as two years ago, but my waistline and dress size isn't.

Scales can be evil...do not let them steal a moment of victory from you.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Weigh-in 3/5/12

It's that time again...weigh in day.

Dun Dun Dun...

A couple of weeks ago i decided to give it a go with changing up my weigh in days. SUPER BAD IDEA! I have still shown losses every week, but nothing like what i want to see. Tonight i was back on track 100% with my Monday weigh ins and Weight Watchers meetings and it felt good. I'm a weekend eater, and i know that. Monday is the best weigh in day for me, it breaks that awful weekend habit because who in their right mind is going to stuff their face with french fries on Saturday knowing full well they have to face the scale on Monday?

Someone who is NOT going to lose weight. That's who. As of today, i am down to 177lbs. One little pound from my lowest weight ever in November 2010. The baby weight hasn't come off quick, but i'm pretty happy with it all. My little twins aren't yet 9 months and i'm 1lb from my lowest weight every. Hopefully by the time they hit that 9 month milestone, i will have breezed into new weight loss territory that i have never seen. As of Tuesday, i am exactly 8 weeks out from my belated honeymoon. My original goal was to be at 169 by the time i leave, i'm going to push it a little further and aim for another 15lbs lost by then. If i don't hit my goal, it's ok, but i would rather aim high and enjoy the amazing rewards if i reach that goal rather than get lazy because my goal is too low. I am 22lbs over my ultimate goal...22lbs! HOLY CRAP! I never thought i would see that day. When you have over 100lbs to lose, everything looks pretty impossible. Yet here i am...living proof that nothing is impossible.

Stay healthy! Look from some of my own little workout challenges to be posted soon.