Catching Up On Workouts and Nutrition

I got a little busy last week and did not update my numbers and measurements, but I did in fact lose. I lost another pound and about 1.5" total. I weigh in and measure again tomorrow and will update then. There is only one more week left after that! This challenge has been helpful and I wish I would have found this as a motivator prior to help get the last few pounds off. I'm looking forward to my final 9 days of this program and hopefully will be well on my way to kick-starting the new year.

So, I haven't posted my workouts lately, but thought I would do that with my nutrition today. One of my favorite things to do at the gym is the arc trainer. I feel like the elliptical does nothing for me, and I don't love to run. I love the stair climber but it is usually always taken. The arc trainer is the next best thing. Here is the workout I did today:

Nutrition and Taking The First Step Toward A New Career

For the last month and a half I have had six interviews for a new job. I felt like they all went well. Except the first interview I had. But, nothing has come of any of these positions yet. So I figured, since I have the time I am going to start pursuing other interests - one of which is to become a personal trainer. I finally purchased my CPR/AED class and my training material for NASM Certified Personal Trainer.

I am excited about this for several reasons. One being that I hope to increase my knowledge of how to create the best workouts for my body. Two being that I will learn more about nutrition. And three that I will be motivated to stay on track with my own goals.

I've worked with several personal trainers and group ex instructors over the years and hope to take the best things from each of them. I hope my challenges with weight loss and exercise motivate anyone I train in the future and I hope it gives me a better understanding of the motivation they will need.

Now to catch up on Nutrition:

Feeling Good This Week - New Challenger, Nutrition and PARTY

The benefit to setting reasonable weight loss goals is that you can afford to have a cheat day or meal. However, the first two weeks of this program I felt like I went overboard with my "cheat day." So, I am now doing a cheat meal.

I'm still staying between 1200-1400/calories a day. And I average 5,000 calories burned each week in my workouts.

The downside of a cheat day is that the next day you are going to feel heavier, probably because you are. As with any carb-cycle that I've ever done, I always gain week on the high carb days. Then it takes a couple days to get that weight off and the rest of the week is growth. This week, I didn't see as much gain after my cheat day. So, I'm feeling good with my goals for this week.

Week 2: Weigh-in and Measurements

Well, we are two weeks into the six week challenge. I measured with Matt yesterday, and today I weighed in. I started off weight at 11am originally, so I've tried to keep the time the same even though I'm about a pound lighter in the morning.

Taking a look back at where I started:

I SERIOUSLY Need To Buy Eggs

We ran out of eggs over Thanksgiving, and I've been waiting to make my weekly trip to the grocery store for Shop 'N Save Thursday. Yea, I'm one of those maniacs who takes advantage of $10 off my grocery bill.

Looking at my nutrition from the last couple days I really wish I had some eggs. I eat so much better when I start with eggs in the morning.

I've done something that I thought I would never do this week though. I gave up my beloved Rockstar Roasted Light. For any of you have seen me before 10am, you probably saw a Rockstar Roasted in my hand. At one point in my life, gas stations stopped stocking my beloved, and I went so far as to buy two cases online. It's my crack. Matt D. always made fun of me for not being able to give it up. He's one of those Coffee Black drinkers! But I always argued with him on this because it IS the healthiest, tastiest coffee drink you could possibly have. Plus its Rockstar so it had extra energy boosters. Only 100 calories for 16 ounces of coffee goodness. BUT, I am giving it up and have exchanged it for plain-ol-coffee plus a little bit of mocha creamer. So, in exchange for 100 calories I am now going for 35. My diet is getting pretty picky.

Nutrition Apps - A Review of Food Journal Apps

I've given it about a week. And wanted to review the apps I have been using both for nutrition and for exercise. I'm going to give each an overall rating out of 5 stars, plus the pros/cons.

First The Food Journaling Apps:
Livestrong.com & MyPlate App





The website Livestrong.com also operates an App called MyPlate. The App is $2.99 to download.
Pros: Website and App track all nutrients: calories, fat, fiber, carbs, protein, sodium & sugar. For someone who is really looking to track all aspects of their health this is a great breakdown. This App also has verified data for almost any food you could think of and its fitness portion allows you to enter exact calories burned and not just which activity you did.
Cons: The App does not work as well as the website. It does not always sync when you switch between the App and the website. It also does not allow for a presentable export option. If you print the exported document the text is too small to read.

MyFitnessPal.com & My Fitness Pal App

The website MyFitnessPal.com also operates an App called MyFitnessPal. The App is a free download.
Pros: Website and App sync seamlessly together. You can add food via your phone and it will be updated on the website. This App also has almost any food nutrient data. You can also track exact calories burned for each exercise. The export to print option works perfectly for someone wanting a readable copy. This app does allow you to track all nutrients, but you must edit your diary settings on the website in order to make them show up.
Cons: The only con to this app is that you can not enter your own nutrient goals based on a low-carb/high protein diet, etc.

Food, Food and More Food

Everyone in my family loves, and by loves I mean OBSESSES over Thanksgiving food. For years, my mom has made enough deserts that each person could have their own pie. More stuffing than anyone has seen. AND, I hardly eat on Thanksgiving.

This is probably a blessing in disguise since I am doing this challenge. I don't eat stuffing. I don't like gravy. I really just eat Turkey, Salad and a roll. So this year I volunteered to make the salad, since I will eat most of it.

I'm trying to not bog this blog down with posts of nutrition. So here are my meals for the past few days. I'm going to go ahead and posts today's journal even though I'm not done eating for the day. John and I made lean ground beef tacos for a very late lunch today since I got moving so much later.

Nutrition for Monday, November 21:I bought these voila frozen meals for something easy and healthy to make for dinner. It is noodles with chicken and LOTS of veggies (carrots, broccoli, corn). I took most of the chicken and broccoli since John hates broccoli. We used to love these meals. However, today's SUCKED! Will not be eating that again.

Nutrition for Tuesday, November 22:
I feel like I did better on this day, even though I had a few hundred more calories I could eat. My Carb to Protein level was much more where I wanted it. Plus if you haven't tried Trader Joe's Flax Chips you should. They taste amazing and have fiber unlike most tortilla chips. Today's workout was rough for me, but I'll post about that separately.

Nutrition for Wednesday, November 23:

Workout Apps and Nutrition

I've been doing workouts from a book I purchased about 6 months ago when Borders went out of business. 101 Fat Burning Workouts.

Workouts For The Week:
Thursday - Kettlebells, Ball Slams, Bounce Squats (that's what I'll call them) and Boxing with Matt D. Oh and the dreaded treadmill push.
Friday - 30 minutes cardio on the Arc Trainer and a full body circuit workout from my book.
Saturday - I took Saturday off because I went to The Urge show the night before and was lacking sleep.
Sunday - Boxing - took me 80 minutes to burn 1000 calories my arms were limp noodles but I love boxing.
Monday - Today I tried something new. I downloaded 5 workout apps on my droid phone and thought I would give them a try. Most of them have "motivators" which talk over the workout. I'm going to do a review of these in more detail in another post. But, I did a 20-min intense workout (push ups, burpees, jumping lunges, jumping jacks, mountain climbers, plank leg raises, etc) Then I did a 40-min Elliptical Intense workout, but I hate elliptical so I used the Arc-Trainer instead. 1000 calories burned in a little less than 80 minutes.

Tomorrow I'm meeting with Matt for my PT session since Thursday is Turkey Day. Gonna jump on the scale, but I'm afraid I haven't lost anything yet. Which is disappointing with what I've been doing. But I'm GOING TO STICK WITH IT!

Do nothing, get nothing. Do something, get something!

So, I hadn't posted my nutrition from yesterday yet, so here it is, definitely still not where I want to be with distribution on carbs v. protein. But not gonna give up there.

Nutrition - Sunday, November 20, 2011:

Nutrition - Tracking Food Is The Hardest Part of This Process

Breakfast - Scrambled Eggs, Spinach, RF Cheese, Banana

Working out has always been the easiest part of weight loss for me. I have a great trainer who has introduced me to sports really, that I love. Boxing and beating the crap out of something when you've had a bad day - nothing beats that feeling. But, nutrition that's another story.

I'm pretty good at tracking nutrition once I'm a few weeks in, but starting off it just seems impossible, BUT I'm going to do it.

Post Workout Lunch - Salad and Protein Smoothie

The website I use is Livestrong.com. I've used a lot of food journaling techniques: Weight Watchers, Excel Sheets, Spark People, My Calorie Counter. I feel like the best option has been Livestrong.com. It has any food you could possibly think of already programmed in, and on the fitness side you can enter the exact number of calories burned instead of selecting some generic exercise.

So, to reach my target of 2lbs lost each week - I am aiming for 1,400 calories a day. I also will be doing one "off" meal a week to give myself a break on the weekends.

Now for my nutrition for Day 1 - November 18, 2011: