Day 308 - Weigh in

It has been a pretty fantastic day today once again!  I was pretty sure of what the results would be before I actually got them this morning because I have been doing really good in the way of watching what I am eating, and exercising regularly.  So I wound up waking at 7:30 am again after going to bed fairly early last night.  I headed downstairs, turned on the wii, and got ready for the awesome news that I was really hoping to see.  It turned out that I lost another 2 lbs this week and I am now at 189!  75lbs down, and only 4 more to go to get to my initial goal weight!  It feels absolutely amazing!

Jan and I had made plans to pick up Sara today and go to Costco, Petsmart and Safeway.  We wound up leaving the house around 10:30am and since Jan wasn't quite ready, I walked over to the Tim Horton's and grabbed myself a coffee and asked if she could pick me up there.  We finally got to Costco at around 11:30am and walked around to get our shopping done.  Actually, it was more Sara and Jan got their shopping done, I just did some looking.

By the time that Jan and I got home, it was roughly around 3:30pm.  I really didn't want to go to the gym, well I did, and I didn't.  But, I wound up going anyways.  I made it to the gym around 4:30pm and I was really surprised to see that it wasn't busy at all.  I headed upstairs to the ladies only room and got on the eliptical.  I started off on a level 4 for a min and then bumped it up to a level 8.  I left it here until the 10 min mark and then increased the level to a 10.  I left it here for the remainder of my time and wound up burning 314 calories in 30 min.

I am not sure why but every time I get off of the eliptical I never seem to feel fully satisfied.  So, I headed over to the treadmill and put it on a 2.5 speed and a 2.5 incline.  After 5 min I increased the speed to a 2.8 and raised the incline to a 4.5.  At the 10 min mark I raised the speed once more to a 3 and the incline to a 6.5.  I left it here until the 20 min mark and raised the speed one last time to a 3.4.  I went on for about 3 min, hit the cool down button and by the end of 28 min here, I had burned another 154 calories and I was completely satisfied with my workout.

Now that I am home, I will be doing my stretches, and also, I will be doing my 100 ab crunches, the plank hopefully and I will try to do at least 20 pushups throughout the stretching.  I have decided that I will be posting a few pictures that I have recently taken.  I know I haven't exactly been faithful in that department but, I feel that it keeps everyone anticipating when the next bundle is going to be up!  :)

This one was taken on my last shift at Esso.  I was really excited to be finally quitting the 2 job experience.  Now I'm not sure if it was such a wise move lol.

I couldn't quite get my hair figured out for work one day, so I took a couple of pictures and liked this one the best :)

This was taken on the night of one of the last Rush games.  I went with my cousin Stacey and we had a great time!

And lastly, these two pictures were taken last Sunday afternoon when I realized that I was now in an XL shirt instead of a 1x. 

I am now very excited to see how much more I can lose before my year is up from starting this journey and I am pretty sure that I will be able to losed at least another 25 or 30 lbs.  I will have to make my choice soon for my new weight goal as I am pretty sure I will hit my 185 within the next 2 weeks!

Day 307

After I got off of work yesterday I headed over to the gym after stopping at Walmart to print off the pictures that I had ordered to send to my dad.  I went upstairs to the ladies only room and did the eliptical on a level 14 for 5 min and then didn't really feel that good so went over to the treadmill and did 25 min there.  I really didn't leave myself alot of time before having to pick up Jan and so that's where I stopped.

Today however, I was awake at 7:30am and decided that I was going to hit the gym before Jan got up so that if she wanted the car, she would have it.  Again I went over to the ladies only room and this time I went straight over to the bikes even though the eliptical was free.  I did 20 min here at a casual pace and keeping it in between a level 4 and a 1.  From there, I went over to the other side and did 40 min on the treadmill on a 2.5 speed and varying the incline from 2.5, 4.5 and 6.5.  By the time I was done, I wound up burning 313 calories.  I figured that since I had pushed myself so hard in the last couple of weeks, and because I can feel it, especially in the legs, I wanted to do a more lower intensity workout today.

I got home around 11am to find out that Jan wanted to go and do some grocery shopping.  So, at 2, we headed out to Safeway.  We got home around 4 and then had something to eat for lunch/supper.  I know I won't be having anything else to eat and that is fine with me.  I am hoping to get to bed a little bit on the early side today so that I am able to get up and get to the gym tomorrow bright and early as well.

We will be going for a walk with the dogs here shortly and then when we get back I will be getting the stretches/core done and then heading off to bed.  My whole outlook today has been pretty good, and I have been keeping pretty positive as well.  Today I am expressing gratitude for the food that I am able to eat and the liquids (water) I am able to drink.  It has really helped to keep me alive and on the right track with my continued weight loss and not to mention the fact that I love to eat!  :)

Tomorrow is weigh in day and it is looking pretty promising.  I just hope that it is as good as I think it is going to be.  It won't be long if I keep this up and I will be at my goal weight.  And then I get the luxury of starting a new one!  :)

Day 305

I want to start off this blog on a more positive note than I have in previous ones.  I will be trying a new approach each time that I post the blog so that I can continue on the path of helping myself lead a more uplifting and happier life.

Today I woke up feeling quite refreshed from yesterdays episode of not feeling well and I wanted to kick start my day off right by thinking more and more about things that I was grateful for during my day.  As I crawled out of bed, I thought to myself, you know, thank God that I was able to open my eyes this morning.  I really am grateful to be able to breathe and use my feet even though they still hurt.  After awhile, they work just fine and I am so thankful for that.  As the day progressed on, I thought, as I passed the gym on my way to work, I am so happy that I made the decision to go to the gym and sign up for a membership to change my life around.

As I got to work, I silently thanked the LRT driver for the safety of arriving downtown so that I was able to go to work and perform my job.  It was all starting to pick me up and make me really think about everything in this life that has benefited me and helped me in my life.  As I was at work, and answering calls, I had received a call from a lady that had undergone hip surgery.  I felt bad for her but at the same time I told her, "It can only get better from here on in."  Yes, maybe she is in extreme pain, but at least she is alive and otherwise healthy. 

As I was finishing my shift I thought, boy am I glad to be alive today.  I have so much to live for.  I have my family, no matter how angry I get at some things that happen, I have my friends, and I have my pets that love me, all of them, unconditionally, no matter what stupid decisions I make.  It only got better from there.  I felt so much better, and I felt like I was almost able to conquer anything.  I went and picked up my pay stub, my last one, from Esso, opened it up and silently thanked Esso for the little bit of extra money that I had made. 

All of this stuff that happened today made me feel so great.  I know that with all of this positiveness, it will make things go by that much smoother.  This will be a practise that I am putting to the test each and every day.  Somehow I have got to be able to get myself in a better frame of mind and not hold on to grudges that I have been holding on to for so long.

I went to the gym, headed upstairs to the ladies only room and saw that the elipticals were empty and just calling my name.  Today, I was planning on finally catching up with Carmen's 391 calories in 35 min.  I started off on a level 6 and carried on for about 5 min.  At 6 min, I increased the tension 1 level higher.  Every min I increased the level until I hit a level 14.  I went on as long as I could before I had to drop it slowly back down.  I hit 35 min before I knew it and looked at my calories.  I hadn't quite gotten there.  By the time I hit 391 calories, I had missed the target by 53 seconds.  Darn!  I was so close!

I left the gym feeling very satisfied with what I had done.  That was pretty impressive for me, and I was extremely determined to hit that record.  I went to pick up Jan from the LRT and called Carmen to let her know.  I told her, you know, I think if you are going to set a record for me to beat, you should probably make it easier for me.  We both laughed and she told me that I could always try and beat her jog time of 3/4 of a mile.  HA HA!  Not gonna happen with this chick.  Not yet anyways.  We decided that we would call it a tie, 391 calories on the eliptical in 35:53 is pretty damn good.  :)

When I got home, I was feeling pretty tired.  I really didn't want to do anything else let alone, stretches and core exercises.  However, me being the good girl that I am, I did it anyways.  I went downstairs, cleaned out the litterbox and then came upstairs to get the torture over and done with.  I held the regular plank for 35 seconds, the side plank on each side for 20 seconds each, a total of 100 ab crunches and my normal stretches that I am required to do on a regular basis.

Now that I am finishing up with this blog, I am feeling very tired, but at the same time, I am feeling extremely satisfied with my day.  I am sure that I am going to sleep well tonight, and that tomorrow will be just as good as today was.  In fact, it will be absolutely fantastic once again and I can't wait!

Day 303

It has been another wonderful day!  If I have many more of these, I just may start floating around in the world because I am feeling so high!  Before supper last night I had a little bit of an issue.  I was feeling pretty terrible and I kept feeling a sharp pain in my chest whenever I would breathe either in or out and I thought maybe, seriously maybe, I was having a heart attack.  I wan't completely sure what was going on, so I opted to get my stretches done and go and lay down for a little bit to see if maybe it would make a difference.  It seemed to alleviate the pain a little bit so I figured that I should be going to bed early and try to get some rest.  Even though I wasn't feeling to great health wise, I was still in high spirits though so, it turned out to be good after all.

This morning I woke up at 5:30am not sure exactly how the day was going to go.  I was still pretty tired even though I had roughly 9 hours of sleep but, the pain in my chest had seemeed to move on.  I went outside to have a smoke and as I was out there my body felt like collapsing underneath me and I got dizzy.  I am thinking that the smoking needs to stop.  I want to quit anyways, so I guess tomorrow I will have to be using the nicorette that I bought even though I hate the taste of it.  They do work somewhat so I guess it is time.

The day went pretty good at work, I had a little bit of coaching and when I got off at 12pm, I immediately headed off to the gym to get a workout done.  I knew that because of our session yesterday with Jeremy that I was in a little bit of discomfort and I did want to do my cardio today, but I really didn't want to push myself to the point that I wasn't able to continue for the next week.

I headed up the stairs after changing and went over to the treadmill.  I set it on a 2.5 incline and a 3 speed for 7 min and then raised the incline to a 4.5.  I carried on for another 8 min and then once again increased the incline up to a 6.5.  I went on to the 22 min mark and raised it one more time to a 9 incline.  At 30 min I dropped the incline back down to a 2.5, lowered the speed to a 2.8 and left it there until I hit the 45 min mark.  I then lowered it to a 2.5 speed and carried on for the last 10 min and hit the cool down button.  In my hour on the treadmill, I burned 381 calories.  Apparently my morbid thinking thinks that is a mellow workout but, looking at the calorie burn, I guess not.

I got home at around 2:30pm with a tea for Jan, and a coffee for myself.  I sat to relax for awhile before getting the energy to get the other part of my homework done today.  I brought out the yoga mat, got down on the floor and held the plank for 40 sec.  I then did the plank on each side holding it for 20 seconds on each side and sat on the mat to stretch my legs out.  I then laid down and went into 40 ab crunches, brought my hands above my head and reached above me and pointed my toes.  I went into another 40 ab crunches and then pulled my right leg across my body and held the stretch for about a min.  I did another 40 ab crunches and did the other side.  40 more ab crunches and then did the last stretch that I normally do with my ankle on the knee and drawing it up towards my chest.  I did the other side and in between did 20 more ab crunches for each.

Jeremy would be proud because I was only supposed to be doing 10 min of core and stretches every day but, I wound up doing 45 min combined! :)  200 ab crunches later, and with the stretching under my belt, I do feel much better now than I did before I started.

I will be going to the gym tomorrow again aftter work, and I may just do the eliptical tomorrow.  Because I did the treadmill for an hour today, my feet are feeling just a little on the sore side and I think it would be a wise choice to take it easier tomorrow on the feet.  I may do some strength training as well tomorrow as I will be getting to the gym at around 1 and I will have roughly about 2 1/2 hours to pick up Jan from the LRT.  I guess I will have to see how it goes tomorrow.

In closing, I am going to try and get to bed fairly early tonight, I am pretty tired, and not only that but, I think having a good sleep every night should help in keeping me feeling good.  No more staying up late for me!  :)

Day 302 - Session

Today has been another good day.  I think more and more good days like this and I won't have to worry about doing the blog anymore!  Just kidding!  I wound up waking up late this morning.  I didn't get a good sleep last night and wound up crawling out of bed at 6:15am.  I made it just in time to leave the house at 7am and away I went to work.

I am feeling a little bit better on the phones, but, there are quite a few things that I am still a little unclear of and I am sure that I will be receiving some more coaching at the end of the week.  All in the process of learning right?

I was lucky enough to get a call that lasted until almost half an hour after my shift ended.  I thought that maybe I would be late for my session with Jeremy but, I arrived early and was upstairs and ready to go right on time.

I was on the treadmill for about 12 min before he was ready to come and get me and when he did, we made our way over to the TRX ropes.  I did about 15 reverse lunges here and then he gave me a medicine ball and told me to lift it above my head and then drop it on the floor.  I then had to squat and pick it up and repeat this about another 15 times.  I went back to the TRX ropes, this time doing about 20 rows on it and then I had to lift a heavier medicine ball about 12 times this time.  I finished up on the TRX ropes with the rows one more time and then I got to do my favorite activity in the world.

I got to go down and up the stairs 3 times!  Yay!  From there, I went over to a different machine that I had to kind of squat in a half squat, pull a rope towards me lifting weights, step to the side and pull again alternating each side.  Back down and up the stairs and then I was able to rest for a couple of min to look at Jeremy's picture of his neice that was just born this past Thursday! :)  I love looking at baby pictures and he sure looked to be the proud Uncle for the first time!  He also showed some pictures of his mom and dad and of course, the proud parents.

Back over to the pulley rope after the pictures, and this time he put the weights up a little bit.  I did this again about 12 times on each side and then we made our way downstairs where I had to do leg lifts on a different machine 12 times on each leg.  I had to go up and down the stairs 2 times but this time he switched it up a little bit.  As I was going up the stairs I had to take them two at a time and then come down normally.  Went over to do the leg lifts again and then the stairs twice again two stairs at a time.  Jeremy at this point had to run off for a min by the time I got back downstair and I took that opportunity to sit down on the stairs and rest to wait for him.

We went over to a secluded area of the club where I had to do 15 side arm lifts with a 10 lb dumbell in each hand and then step ups.  He let me rest for a few seconds, I repeated and then repeated this set one more time.  We made our way back upstairs over to the bike where I was put on a level 12 tension for a min, reduced to a 4, back up to a 12, and then when I couldn't go on anymore we negotiated to alternate a level 8 and a level 4 for the next 12 min.  By the time I was done, we had set up our next session for next Tuesday when he is back from Las Vegas at 11am.

All in all, it was a fantastic workout! Jeremy was really impressed with my intensity today and made sure to let me know a few times throughout the session.  We talked quite a bit and it was all good.  My homework for the next week is to do 4 hours of cardio and 10 min of stretching and core every day.  Pretty much the standard homework that he normally gives, but I always make sure to remind him either before the session is over, or text him later.

I guess it's a good thing that I am off work at 12pm all week!  I should be able to get some pretty good cardio in and even go pretty hard as well! :)

Day 301 - Weigh in

I finally made it to day 301.  Amazing how time seems to just fly by!  Yesterday I had full intentions of getting in a 2 hour workout however, it just didn't happen even though I was up early.  I woke 7:30 am and had my breakfast made and eaten by 8 am.  I figured I had pretty much all day to get that workout in so I was really in no rush.  I should have just gone when I got up.  It turned out that Jan had a call from one of her friends at 11:30am.  Her friend had just picked up a new car and wanted to know if Jan would like to go to Ikea for the day.  She was supposed to go and pick up a cat scratching post and bring it home but, wound up asking me if I would mind staying home until the post could be delivered at 1:30pm.  I agreed and then by the time it arrived and I was finally able to go to the gym, it didn't leave me much time to do my workout, come home, shower, change and get ready to go to the Rush game.  I had to be in Devon to pick up my cousin and I just didn't have time.  So, I left the workout undone yesterday.

We had alot of fun at the game last night.  It was Stacey's first time going and it was also the first time that we were able to actually hang out just the two of us.  Our Edmonton boys wound up losing, 9-6 but it was still a pretty good game.  I am so thankful to Jeremy for getting me those tickets.  I have missed going to the games and next year I am hoping to be a season ticket holder with Stacey.

We left Rexall at around 11pm, headed towards Clareview to get the car, grabbed a coffee on the way and then headed back out to Devon to drop her off.  By the time we go there it was 12am and I went inside to use the bathroom and my aunt was still up.  We decided to have a chat and by the time I left it was 2am.  Oh boy, I know I am going to be a tired chicky tonight.  I got home around 2:45am and headed straight to bed.

This morning I was awake at 8am and slowly got out of bed.  I knew that if I didn't get up at that point that I wouldn't be getting up until much later and I have housework to do today and maybe if I am feeling up to it I may be heading to the gym afterwards.  I will have to see.  Anyways, I came downstairs, very excited to check the weigh in.  I stepped on the scale and it read 191!  I lost another 2 lbs this past week making my total weight loss 73lbs!  I am so so SO excited about that!  It just makes me even that much more determined to get a good weigh in for next week as well!

Another thing that had me so excited and anxious this week is what happened on Friday morning.  About a month or maybe even a month and a half ago, Jan and I had gone to Costco and I bought a pair of pants.  At that time when I got home and tried them on, they didn`t quite fit.  I was able to get them on and done up, but they just didn`t look good at all and they also didn`t feel good.  I was able to put them on and wear them to work on Friday!  It was so awesome!  Last night, for the game, I decided that I wanted to try on a shirt that I hadn`t been able to wear yet.  That fit too!  It is still a little bitt tight, but it doesn`t look horrible at all. 

I am extremely proud to say that since I first started this weight loss journey, I started out in a 4x pants, and a 3x shirt.  Now, I am in a size 16 pants, and xl shirt!  This is getting to be very interesting indeed!  I know that when I am down to a size 14, I will finally be on the content side and very happy with myself and the way that my life has changed.  Don`t get me wrong, I am very ecstatic about what I have accomplished in my life this far.  I probably wouldn`t have made it this far without the encouragement and support of some of the people that have picked me up and helped me out in this journey and to them, I am eternally thankful.

Over the last couple of days I have made a few more decisions in regards to some of the changes that I want to happen in my life.  For starters, I am going to start removing the negativity in my life by elimintating those that are bringing me down.  It seems like I start getting my head back into the way that I want to be, start loving life and enjoying it the way that I was intended to life it and it seems like I just get knocked back down further.  I am not handling that very well and I need to do something in which to correct it.  So, I am deleting facebook.  I know I have done this before, but, I think it is the right choice for me.  I need to have a clear head, and I will be continuing the blog, but, those that are wishing to continue reading, will have to save it in their favorites list and should they choose to make comments, will need to make them on the page of the blog now that I have it set up where people may do so.

Anyone that is wishing to keep in contact, can contact me on facebook until the end of next week, I will then forward on my phone number and or email address, but in all seriousness, the only reason why I have kept facebook was for the fact that I could post my blog for those that are wanting to read it.  Other than that, and the fact that I like to get updates on my awesome nieces and nephews, I don`t play the games, and quite honestly, I don`t have any use for it.

This week I work 8 - 12 all week, and tomorrow I have my session with Jeremy at 1:30pm.  I am very excited to go and share with him the success that I had this week and I can`t wait to see what he has planned for me.  It should wind up to be a very interesting and intense session as per usual.  :)

Day 299

I'm thinking today's blog is going to have to be a short one.  I am very very tired today and really anxious to get to bed early.  By early I mean that I am hoping to be in bed and sound asleep by 8pm.  It has been a long day, and a full day, even though technically I didn't do a whole lot, I still worked hard today at both my job and my workout.

This morning I wound up sleeping in until 6:15am.  I really did not want to get up as I had such a terrible sleep last night, and was freezing cold as a result of it by the time I got up.  So I didn't get breakfast this morning and that's ok because I just stopped and picked up kind of like an egg mcmuffin from the Treats coffee shop by my work and had breakfast there.  The day went on pretty well, I wound up receiving some coaching this afternoon which I am thankful for, because I know that I have made a few mistakes, but wasn't exactly sure what.

After work, I was really excited to get going to the gym and complete my workout for the day.  It would mark the successful completion of my "homework" that Jeremy had given me, exceeding it by about half an hour.  I arrived at the gym at 2, and went into the locker room to change.  I went up the stairs and right into the ladies only room.  At that time of day it is really nice because there is noone there and I basically have the run of the room for myself.  It really is quite peaceful. 

I got on the eliptical and immediately set the level at an 8 and started to give it for all it was worth for about 3 1/2 min.  I then lowered it down to a 1 and continued on for another min.  I then decided to try something new and go a little bit higher, so I put it up to a level 10 and tried going as long as I could and then drop it back down to a one for a min.  I kept doing this for 31 min and really was hoping to continue on with the level 10 for the last 4 min but, I just couldn't do it.  I was so tired and wound up quitting at 317 calories burned.

I still had about an hour before I had to pick up Jan from the LRT so I figured that I would just get on the treadmill for a little bit at a slow pace and go for as long as I tired or until I had to go.  I did the first 15 min on a 0 incline and 2.5 speed and then upped the incline to a 2.5 and carried on.  At the end of 30 min I hit the cool down button and by the time I finished I had butned 183 calories there.  I got a total of 500 calories burned today marking my total burn since Mondays session 1964 calories.  That's pretty darn good and it doesn't even stop there!  Tomorrow is my two hour "last chance" workout.  I hope I can do well, and I am actually going to try to get at least 45 min on the eliptical, 45 on the treadmill, and 30 min on the bike.  I will have to see if I will be able to but that is what the plan is.

Tonight I am, as I said earlier, heading off to bed early.  I plan to do my normal 4 stretches, with 20 ab crunches in between each one, and then through in the plank for hopefully 30 seconds for each the normal, and on each side.  I have some awesome news to share on Sunday for weigh in, not too sure about numbers, but, there is definitely some awesome things happening!