Recovering from a very sore back

Ok so after my last post I was hyped. I was ready to go, I was ready to rule the world, until I couldn’t move the next day. Some where in my fabulous workout last Wednesday I either really worked my lower back muscles or I really strained the hell out of them. I am pretty sure it has something to do with swinging that dumbbell up above my head a thousand times.

Thursday I was sore and my back was bothering me but I went to body step anyway. My good friend Lesley joined me to get in some practice with the new release. She just went to get certified to teach this past weekend. I struggled through the class for sure. Tuesday I rocked it, Thursday I looked like an out of shape mess.

Friday I woke up and it was over. I could not get out of bed. The soreness had set in and set in big time. I called out of work because I could hardly walk and spent the day on the couch with the heating pad.

Saturday was not much better but I was able to get up and walk around a little easier. Sunday even better and today even better still.

I had all intention of getting back into the gym today, after all I have been out for 3 days, but my job didn’t want to help me out and I didn’t get out of a 1:30 court hearing until well after 5:00pm. I am taking it as a sign as I can still feel a little pull in my back today, but tomorrow I am back at it and back to body step.

Struggles this weekend were #1 food choices. If I could stop stuffing my mouth on the weekends I might actually be able to get some of this weight off instead of losing and gaining the same 5-8 lbs over and over again.

A friend of mine posted a picture of me on Facebook from college today. UGG I want my body back. I don’t expect to get back 100% to that point but to get somewhere close would be nice.

  Back to the grind tomorrow!

Just think of me as Jillian Michael’s!

That’s what I was told when I went to Fitness Together and met Anastasia for the first time today.

That is what I am talkin about! If I had a Jillian Michael’s in my life I would have never gotten to the point of having to lose 30 lbs. I loved today. Anastasia had me do a circuit that consisted of swinging a 20lb dumbbell, box jumps, some time on the spin bike, and crunches. My legs were ready to give out! We also did some boxing which took me back to my days of kickboxing. Anastasia was so encouraging and so motivating. I loved working out with her. In the end she said “I like working with you, you want this and you want to work!”

Hell ya! I am finding my grove. So far I have met my goal of doing 30 minutes of cardio after my sessions at Fitness Together and I have attended a group class on the days that I am not at FT. 

A game of catch up.

Last night I joined a group class at a nearby gym. It was the launch of Body Step 78 and it was an intense cardio session and I am looking forward to doing it again tomorrow.

Monday I was at Fitness Together with Andrea and she Kicked my ass! It was one of the best workouts I have had with her at FT. She said that she could see that my endurance has increased in the short time I have been at FT and she can already tell I am getting stronger.

I have to admit that last week I was questioning if Fitness Together was the right place for me. I was having some doubts about if I was going to be able to make the changes that I have set out to make.

Today I can say 100% that I know that Fitness Together is the right place for me.  They have encouraged me through out my journey so far and this week more than any other time I have been able to realize that I am making progress. It is slow progress but healthy progress. Anastasia asked me how much weight I have lost today. I told her about 4-5lbs which doesn’t seem like a lot to me but she reminded me that I have probably gained 3-4 lbs of muscle which weights more than fat.

Regardless of what the scale says I feel great. I have been able to do things this week that remind me of when I was at my most fit about 5-6 years ago and that alone encourages me to keep going and to keep working hard.

A Work In Progress

So I made a switch. Blogger was making me VERY angry so I am done with them. I am learning as I go here with WordPress. So far it has taken me forever to find where I typed something to change it to something else. This may be a process! Bare with me please as I learn all about this program and get it to where I want it to be.

Any suggestions on what I may need to know about wordpress would be welcomed!

Self Sabotage

How many times do you sit down to start writing and get a sentence or two in and erase everything as start over? I have been MIA for a few days and even so that is exactly what is happening to me.

Things have been crazy the last few days. I was in the gym on Thursday and hit the treadmill for a bit, nothing exciting at all but I need to turn it up a few notches in the cardio department.

Friday was the same old song and dance at work and then I was off to Fitness Together to meet up with Matt. I feel like I am doing a lot of core work which is good. He also had me to pull ups using some stretchy bands to help counter act some of the weight that I can not lift. Over all I feel like I am getting a really good work out when I am there, but I am not feel like it is enough. Is that their fault? NO NOT AT ALL! I need to turn up the heat in the cardio department big time and that is where the problem lies.

So this week I will be committing myself to attending a group class on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday (because as I told you before I feel like I am working hard when I do this) On the days that I am at Fitness Together no matter how tired I am when I am done with my session I will do at least 30 minutes of additional cardio after my session.

Yesterday Jorge and I went down to DC to the Health and Fitness expo. Something to do and it was free! Before we left the house I had one of these.

Over all I was pretty disappointed with the whole thing. The highlight of the event was seeing these two.

I thought they would have more information on health and fitness (I mean that is what it was for right) instead they had a lot of random stuff. There were a lot of stations where you could get your blood pressure taken or other test done. There were some gyms there advertising their gym. There were some food demonstrations. But over all it was a huge room filled with insurance companies, window and siding companies, the human society, quick fix scams and not to much on true health and fitness. O’well now we know!

After we left we took the lunch we packed and headed over to the title basin. It was a bit chilly after we sat down and stopped moving so we didn’t stay to long but we had a lunch with a view.

We had Turkey sandwiches with Laughing Cow light and spinach, we shared carrots, celery and yellow pepper and then we headed to the car BURR and shared an apple and orange.

After lunch we headed to Tyson’s to catch a movie. Sherlock Holmes. Jorge had it all planned. He has been wanting to see the movie and I can go either way and usually lean towards skipping a movie but he had the movie times all printed out and we were going to be right on time to catch the 2:55 show. We ended up sharing a popcorn with no butter! The movie in my opinion was eh ok.

When we got out we had a message from Jorge’s brother asking us if we wanted to meet at Tyson’s for drinks and a movie. We decided we would get dinner and meet up to hang out but another movie was not in the cards for me.

We ended up grabbing dinner here.

We went back and forth on what to order and what would be a good healthy choice. We decided to get their Ahi Tuna salad and their Chicken & Avocado Sandwich with fruit instead of fries. (Jorge made this decision as he was ordering mean while I was secretly wanting to try their garlic fries….Good Job Hubby)

Dinner went a little like this…..

I had 1/2 of the salad with no dressing (although it did have some kind of sauce on it that I didn’t know was going to be on it.) and 1/4 of the chicken sandwich and a little bit of the fruit. I didn’t miss the fries at all!

OK so this is where it went down hill for the day. We met up with Jorge’s brother and his cousin at TGIFridays and the Blue Moon was flowing. I had 3. Of course when I am drinking I get HUNGRY even if I am not hungry. So we ordered Boneless BBQ chicken wings and I had a little of that. Then they gave us free chips and I had some of those as well.

I can sabotage myself like no other! ~ I spent all day making pretty good choices and I get to the end and it was a free for all.

Today I have been thinking to myself..Do I want to make changes? I know that I do but I can’t seem to make the decision to change when the going gets tough. I have realized that even though I am doing some things different there are still to many times where I am still doing things the same way I have been doing things and expecting something to be different.

Do you self sabotage? In what ways?

 

 

(PS after typing this post I officially hate blogger and I will be working on moving to wordpress, I will let you know when the change happens.)

2 HH or Not 2 HH??

HH~ a term that flies around my office frequently! Today was no exception. What is HH you ask? HAPPY HOUR! On any other given day I would have forgotten about working out and I would have gone with everyone to have some drinks. Today I said no! Today I made a decision to follow through with my plan for myself instead of being side tracked. It was a hard decision because today was a very stressful day but instead of drinking empty calories I went to Fitness Together and worked out with Samantha.

I will admit that I have been struggling with motivation this week. I have been more tired then usual. I have been questioning if I am doing enough, if I am going to see results, if I am eating right and if I am making good choices. When I start this thinking I usually talk myself out of continuing with going to the gym and start questioning what I am doing. I am going to beat these thoughts and feelings! I am going to keep going. One day this will get easier if I just keep going.

I really like working out with Samantha. She doesn’t let up no matter how much I complain or how many times I roll my eyes! It hurts, she pushes me to keep going and it hurts. She knows it hurts but she makes me keep going. Today I felt stronger then I did when I was with her last week. Don’t get me wrong I am still a weakling and far from where I want to be but I wasn’t quite as dizzy or winded as I felt last week.

I am not going to put pictures from the past few days. I was able to get this blogger thing to working right but I am going to take it as lesson learned and I will be back on track with pics tomorrow.

Blogger Issues

Ok so I don’t know what is wrong with my blogspot but it is now not letting me post pictures. There use to be a nice tool bar that let me change font, add pictures and do all kinds of stuff. It’s gone! I don’t know where it went and I don’t know how to get it back. This may be a problem!!

Yesterday was a whirl wind of a day. I was so busy at work and unable to eat as planned much less take pictures. Sometimes in my job I am stuck with out being able to get to my food that is packed and in the fridge. You might think I should put it in a cooler and carry it with me but that is not an option. Even if I had it with me I would not be able to eat it.

I am coming to realize that I am not going to be able to blog everyday. This is very time consuming and the reality of it is that I am very busy and I have a lot going on in life. Not saying that I am not going to blog but I think I started this thinking I would be able to do it in the evening everyday. Sorry to disappoint folks.

I got pics of my food today but like I said I can’t show them to you for some reason. I am going to work on this and see what I can figure out. If any one has any suggestions I would love to hear them.

Yesterday I was suppose to go to Fitness Together but I had to reschedule due to work running later then expected. I went tonight and did a good lower body work out with Andrea. She loves that Bosu ball, me not so much, but I understand why she likes it. It really does make you work harder and use more muscles then you would with out it. It really challenges your balance which it seems I need a bit more help in that department then I thought I did. Today was lots of lunges, some squats, and lots of core work. Another great thing about a trainer is that you don’t have to focus on counting your sets and when you are tired you still have to keep going.

Anyway, I know this is not very exciting. I will try to get things together with blogspot and get back to you. If this doesn’t work I may just have to switch over to wordpress. I will keep you posted.

A Rough Weekend!

So I am not going to start by telling you all about the wonderful food that I ate this weekend or showing you pictures of everything that I put in my mouth. Instead I am going to come clean with the fact that this weekend has been a roller coaster of a ride and I have been trying to hold on. Friday night we tried these. Chile Lime Chicken Burgers.

(Blogger will not let me post pictures. I will add them later)

They were actually pretty tasty. Here is my plate.
(insert picture)

All thought they tasted good they were anything but what I wanted. I chugged some water and sucked it up knowing that I was not hungry at all. I went to bed and did not have anything else.

Saturday morning I had a chocolate, banana, and almond milk protein shake and off to the gym I went where I had a really great workout on the tready. 45 minutes total on the incline treadmill. The time counted backwards which for some odd reason I hate that.

45-25 I walked at 3.8-4.1 and changed the incline from 3% to 6% to 9% every minute.
25-20 I walked at 4.1 at 3%
20-10 I jogged at 4.5-5.0 at 1%, my goal was to get a mile in which I did.
10-5 I walked at 4.0 1%
5-0 I walked at 3.8-2.0 to cool down.

I stretched and did some abs.

When I got home I tried to make my normal 1 whole egg, 3 egg white, spinach and tomato omelet like I always do, but I ended up with this.

(insert picture)

I had to scramble the eggs which ended up being a disaster while I tried to stuff it in my mouth. I ended up having to get a fork to eat it. Taste the same but a huge mess.

Then we cleaned. Later I had some Greek yogurt and fiber O’s to hold me over to dinner because it was getting late.

That’s when it went down hill and pictures of my food didn’t happen. We went to dinner with my parents. Red Robin was the choice. I convinced myself that if I got the California chicken burger with no bacon that I was doing good. That would have probably been fine however I also ate the fries. I guess it could have been worse but I know I should have had a salad or done with out the fries.

Sunday
Today I finished up the TJ’s Greek yogurt with some more O’s. We went to drop some things off at the good will and then to Costco to restock. I had ½ of a pot sticker that they were passing out. We got what we needed and got out. It was a mad house.

I didn’t eat again until we went to Jorge’s parents for his grandmothers 82nd birthday. I made guacamole to take and wanted to have protein oats before I left the house so that it would be easier for me to resist all of the food there but I ran out of time.

I chugged water on the way there to fill my tummy a little. I had a few chips with guacamole before dinner. Jorge was great and asked his Aunt not to put the salad dressing on the salad and instead let people put their own on. Nothing like taking a healthy salad and drenching it with dressing making one of the most unhealthy things on the table.

When dinner time came around I had a little bit of rice w/ lintels, 1 SMALL white potato, a plate full of salad with a little bit of pot roast on top. I also used a little bit of balsamic dressing. Again I guess it could have been worse but still not exactly as good as I would have liked it to be.

Cake time came and I was glad that they had a carrot cake…it is easy to resist the cake when you don’t like the flavor of the cake being served.

Over all I guess my weekend meals were not too horrible but I need to do better!

Tomorrow is another day and I am back at Fitness Together to work off those fries!

One tired gal and fighting mad cravings!

What do you do when you are so tired and can’t sleep at night but you want to work out and give it your all-but your all is half assed? That’s how I feel today. I don’t know what is wrong with me today but this chick is pooped!

There was no time to post my meals yesterday, I had to study. I finally got to take the ”real” national real estate test today so last night was cram central. I would like to report that I passed the test!  I pass one (the national section) of the two tests that I had to take. I am so pissed at myself because I was so close to passing the state section but missed it by one stinkin question. WTF!!! So I have to go back next week and take the state part again. I mean the good thing is you can take it until you pass it, the bad thing is you have to pay everytime. Damn it! O’well I will get it on the next go around.

So lets get down to business. Yesterday’s grub!

Breakfast- Trader Joe’s Vanilla Greek Yogurt and Fiber O’s. I am having a hard time with TJ’s Greek yogurt. It is tasty but the issue is that it is SUPER THICK! Now don’t get me wrong I love thick greek yogurt but man this stuff is like cement. Tasty Cement!

Can’t seem to get in the mid morning meal~ I think that will be a goal next week.

Lunch came and it was delish! I took the left over chicken from Kung Pao night and instead of putting the salty sauce on it I chopped it up and put BBQ sauce on it and WAALAA BBQ Chicken whole wheat pita with spinach was born! The plan was to have a yogurt with this but a co-worker brought in a soy bean salad that I had to try because it was super healthy and DELISHISH!!! Soybeans, corn, tomato, leeks, onion, and red pepper! YummYumm! I will be making some of this in the future.

I can’t remember what I had in the afternoon but whatever it was I didn’t get a picture of it. It was out of this world good! Must not have been to interesting but I assure you it was something healthy!

I hit the gym yesterday but I didn’t want to wait until 5:30 to do the step class again since I was out of work a bit early so I hopped on the treadmill and did some up hill walking! Speed varied from 3.5-4.5 mph and I gradually increased the incline from 1%-13% for about 40 minutes. I SSSTTTRRREEECCCHHHEEEDDD and did some abs.

Dinner was boring! The last of the thank god chicken soup and 1/2 of an avocado.

Today I gave the Greek Yogurt and Fiber O’s another try..

Yep that would still be cement! One more container of this and it will not be in my fridge again! 

Off to take my test I went and we already know how that turned out.

Then I had an On the go Luna!

yay mid morning snack! 1 out of 5 days isn’t bad I need to work on that!

Headed into work and by the time i got there it was lunch time.

Nothing to exciting.

 

I usually wouldn’t have my Darling Clementine and a banana but I am a bottomless pit today, maybe that has something to do with why I am so tired.

I had a shake before heading to Fitness Together. Another thing on the list of NO GOOD. Using Myoplex shake mix in the bullet with almond milk and three strawberries. TOO THICK! It looks good and was worth a shot but NOPE!

 

I was with Matt again today and now I can talk about how this whole post started. I have the drive to do this I have the motivation to change but man my body did not want to move my a$$ today. Sorry Matt, but thanks for working with me and getting me through. I have not been sleeping well, we have talked about that before, and it continues. This is the first “real” week of working out hard 6 out of 7 so that could be the reason. I feel like a bottomless pit today and can’t seem to get enough to eat. I am having cravings for fatty food that I am doing my best to resist. oh steak and cheese you are doing pretty dances in my head!

LET THE STRUGGLES BEGIN!

Ok so this is a super long post but that’s what happens when you miss a day! Dinner will not be a fatty food. Oh how I would love to order pizza and drink a beer but instead we are trying something new but I will save that for tomorrow. Stay tuned to read all about it.

How do you resist the cravings for fatty food?

Sweet Tooth

This eating healthy is getting harder especially since I want variety. If I ate the same thing every day, which I guess I could, this would be a piece of cake. Did someone say cake?  Today I took a trip to Trader Joe’s. I have shopped bought wine there in the past but I have never really bought much of their food. Here are my good finds.

I was actually very pleased by their selection and their prices.

A run down of my meals…

Breakfast- Chocolate banana protein shake. (no time for picture I forgot to take the picture, I was in a hurry)

Missed the mid-morning snack again, beginning to think that is never going to happen.

Lunch-Turkey sandwich with cucumbers, no mayo no mustard. Actually really good and you will be seeing this combo again I am sure. A side of carrots and my Darling Clementine.

Afternoon pre-work out snack- Smores Luna. A find at TJ’s and not bad.

Workout time 5:15pm -Tonight I worked out with Matt. No pic of him on the website I think he is a newer trainer at Fitness Together. I was unsure about working out with a guy, I mean what overweight girl wants to be out of breath and sweaty with a strange guy?  I sucked it up and decided while I am on the kick of new things why not give it a try. Result, I was sweaty and out of breath and Matt kicked my butt!

I can see why Wendy recommended working out with different trainers. So far everyone has had a different style, all in a good way. The fun part of tonight was putting on the boxing gloves letting all of my aggression from the day out. Matt held the pads and I punched as hard as I could. He said I had a powerful punch, I said it is from dealing with the people I deal with everyday at work.

Stay tuned for some pics of me working my butt off. Wendy took some pics yesterday which I hope to get from her soon.

Dinner tonight I decided to try a receipt I saw in Shape for Kung Pao Chicken. One of my favorite take out dishes. I also made some brown rice and Asian mixed veggies from TJ’s.

The veggies were very good and brown rice is well, brown rice but the sauce for the chicken was to salty for my taste. It was ok but I don’t think we will be having homemade Kung Pao Chicken again.

After dinner I was craving ice cream something sweet so I whipped out the Bullet and made some pineapple, raspberry sorbet.

I had to add a splenda cause it was pretty tart but over all it was tasty and satisfied my sweet tooth.

How do you feel about working out with a trainer of the opposite sex?

~Today wasn’t bad. I would work out with Matt again.

SHORT AND SWEET TONIGHT

Ok kids here is the low down for today. Biggest Loser is on, I am tired and I want to relax.

The morning started with this. Strawberry protein powder, frozen blueberries, frozen strawberries, and milk.

It was good except for the fact that when you put blueberries in the magic bullet and then drink the drink you get little bits of blueberries in your teeth and it is not pretty! I don’t know that I will do this one again but who knows it maybe a weekend drink instead of one that I have on my way to the office.

Missed my morning snack once again. This work thing has really been getting in the way of my intentions to eat every 3 hours.

You have seen lunch time before. But here it is again. Turkey sandwich and left over salad from last night with my favorite light dressing. Asian toasted sesame. Yum Yum this stuff is good. I have no clue if this is a good choice but I am sure Wendy will let me know.

Once again afternoon snack was cottage chesse and yogurt.

A co-worker came into my office while I was downing this one and said “are you eating again?” yup!

Today I was on my own for some cardio. I still have a membership to a local gym that I have had for a while. I have used it off and on since Jorge and I joined last July but I have not USED it like I need to USE it. I always feel like I get a good workout when I take a group class so that’s what I did. I love the Les Millis Body Series. So today I sweated my butt off in Body Step. What a good cardio work out. I love it. I really do, but my love for it has not made me go on a consistent basis.

Got home tonight and made dinner. On the menu this evening was Tuna steaks with tomato and jalapeno, brown rice and broccoli. It was very tasty. Here is my plate.

Ok so that’s all I got for ya tonight. I have got to make myself go to bed and go to sleep. I have not been able to get to sleep at night.

What do you like to take for lunch? I need some ideas.

~ I like easy and that’s why I end up taking the same thing everyday.

What do you do to help you get to sleep?

~I tried counting sheep last night LOL it didn’t work.