Finding my strengths and weaknesses

I apologize for not posting last week. When drill weekend comes everything gets messed up the week of and the week after. So now that things are back in swing, an the holidays to include my anniversary is over--I ran some reports on myself. I have been tracking my intake for a solid 3 weeks. I have been tracking my fitness with my fitbit force for a solid 3 weeks. With that I found my strengths and weaknesses. So I will never say cheat meals are ok to consume. I will never say my beloved cookies are ok to consume. I will still have "cheat meals" and I will still eat my beloved cookies. Here's the deal. MODERATION. That is the one word I need to work on.

The chart below is my tracked net calories (which means calories I have eaten minus exercise calories, so the calories left over). Of the 3 weeks (21 days) I went over my net calorie goal 7 times. So 1/3 of the time I have tracked so far, I have been over. Not to make excuses, but the dates below I have an excuse for... I went over the 24th by a smudge, no real excuse. I went over by a fair amount on Christmas day (holiday food!). I went over on the 27th for no apparent reason. I went over on the 31st (that was all booze I guarantee you because I worked out a ton that day and ate clean to make up for the drinking BEER has SO MANY calories ugh). Then the 1st because that was our anniversary and we splurged on ourselves. Then the 4th and 5th was drill weekend. So bottom line, my weakness to over consume is on holidays and drill weekends. I cannot do moderation on those days. Unfortunately there is not a nearing holiday, those are really at the end of the year. But I do have another drill in a few weeks so I will do my exercise, practice moderation, and make healthier choices. I know one of the things that contributed was that I was so exhausted, didn't want to make dinner, so we ordered pizza. Either I'm going to suck it up, Colin will have to cook, or we will eat some healthyish (full of preservatives) frozen meal, or just stick to eggs, juice, protein shake, salad for both days. I can redeem myself!

So I'm at a 66% success rate with my diet and honestly that sounds right. I think I tried to cut out too much good stuff leaving me with no snack foods. I love the greek yogurt with fresh berries and the fat free cottage cheese, etc. Leaving myself with no taste of the good stuff leads me to really binge on those binge days. So far to wrap up those sections, my weaknesses are 1) holidays, 2) drill weekends, and 3) labels. I have shopped soley at Whole Foods for what 12 days now? My clever brain has decided the vegan chocolate chip cookies from their bakery are far healthier than packaged cookies say oreos or whatever the case, so therefore I can eat them, and have more of them. Granted I have had maybe 3 a day tops, but I love those cookies and I love that my brain fell into the hipster trap of believing the healthier vegan alternative is great. Cookies.Are.Still.Bad. Back to moderation. That is one thing I read in my studies that some people (like myself in this case) will think oh it says low fat or fat free, or oh its organic, or oh its sugar free, or oh its vegan... all that = healthier which means it's more justifiable to OVER CONSUME. Do not fall for that trap!!! Reprogramming my brain is taking a while but it's doable. I'm working on it. I only allow myself some vegan cookie dough after a hard workout when you need a protein shake and some sugars. There's my weaknesses I have come to realize with this dietary/fitness tracking experiments.

I did accomplish one of my goals of being open this month and trying different work out types. I went to hot yoga and fell in love. I have 19 sessions remaining, a new yoga towel, and a whole new mindset. It is AMAZING. I went yesterday and am going again today. I'm going to do my workout DVDS 6 days a week, the gym 2-3 days a week, hot yoga 2 days a week, and my elliptical every day I work so 3-4 days a week. It's enough to throw my body off and give it a challenge, something different. But hot yoga is a must!! I easily see myself getting a package and new mat after my 20 sessions is up. There's nothing to replace that feeling of detox of your mind, body, and soul. It is a holistic practice that I am all for. Swimming I have decided will take place next month. So free days when it's an easy DVD day or something I can go do some laps or on rest days.

This past week should have finished up Brazil Butt Lift and started Hip Hop Abs. Well after drill kind of threw me off, then working all week, and Colin left for drill--it's been a messy week. I did my best, still worked out 6 days for the week but not quite on the schedule I had on my calendar. I missed 3 full days somehow of Brazil Butt Lift Advanced so I decided to give the program a fair chance, I added them into this week. It's 1 50 min workout and 2 23 min workouts so really not that bad... 12 days worth I missed 3 and I'm keep myself accountable!! I did start hip hop abs and successfully completed week 1. Am I sore? No. Do my abs look better? I have no idea. I know Brazil Butt Lift has given me a lot of lower body strength and helped me knock out 40-50 push ups in a row! I don't know that my butt is legitimately lifted, but it has contributed to my weight loss and overall health. Just like I gave that time and a fair chance, I will do that with Hip Hop Abs. I will give it the initial 4 weeks to see if I see improvements in myself. I am a dancey kind of person so I actually do find it pretty enjoyable and fun. I enjoy Shaun T and I definitely after 6 weeks was ready for a break from Mr. Brazil Booty. 

So my plan for the next 3 weeks is to finish part 1 of Hip Hop Abs, hot yoga 2x a week, gym 2-3x a week for weight lifting, cardio days I work, and be weary of those vegan/organic labels, and have the cookies in moderation. I will also have drill the end of those 3 weeks so it'll be a good test for me to practice being healthier in the drill scenario. I might make a crock pot or something so I've got a healthy thing to eat both drill days. Today I have to hit the gym, hot yoga, grocery store, clean the house, and prepare food for the next few days. I will definitely be making some things and this week I promise to post those recipes I love so much. 

One more thing, I've talked about MyFitnessPal, Map My Fitness, Fitbit, but I have not talked about the Pact App!! I love apps if you couldn't tell. You use your REAL money to make wagers. So my pact is that I will exercise 6 days a week. For every day I don't exercise I have to PAY $5. and You can wager anywhere from $5 to like $50 per day you miss. I also have a pact to track my diet 7 days a week. Any day I miss I pay $5 for that. The last pact I have is to show proof I'm eating vegetables 14 times a week (2X a day at least). And for every vegetable I don't eat (if I'm under 14 at the end of the week) I pay $5 each. So I could lose a lot of money. If you do not make your pact you pay the wagers. If you do make your pact at the end of the week, the people who did NOT make their pact are the ones paying you. So this is my first week and as you can see I need to add 3 veggies today... but my pact will have been complete. So I earn money for it. It's an additional method to make myself accountable. I'm all about that right now!

Well, that is it for now. Next Sunday I have a weigh in and body fat. I might do measurements if I'm feeling ambitious. I've got some things to work on but like I said baby steps. I've come a long way in 6 weeks but I have a long long ways to go still. Keep up the good work, thanks for reading. 

-Nic

Ringing in the New Year

It is January of 2014. Thank god 2013 is over, it sucked. This year however will bring a lot of new challenges to my life. I'm ready to take them head on!!! To get this New Year post kicking off, let's take a look at 2013.

In 2013 I had a flux of excellent physical activity and terrible physical activity. I went from doing 2 work outs a day from Jan-Feb while I was studying my NCLEX to none for a while and working night shift, to gym a lot, to not, to Insanity, to nothing. It's been a roller coaster. Dietary wise wasn't too bad, obviously not the best but it got worse after my surgery. So the end of the year I kicked my butt in gear and did a solid one moth of full dedication. Here is what my calendar ended up looking like:

So out of 31 days of December, there were 4 rest days, 3 days I should have worked out but didn't, and 24 work out days. The diet got much better, slowly but surely added veggies and removed some crap food. It was an overall loss of 3 pounds and 2% body fat in December. Considering the holidays…2 family holiday meals, a party, New Year's Eve drunk fest, I'll take it! My weekly goals for December were: To get into a fitness routine (check), to add veggies (check), to add vitamins (check), ensure bed time 10pm--getting down to being in bed between 10 and 11 so that's pretty good, and then add AM work outs (check!) 

Still loving every minute of my FitBit!! It totally rocks. I've shown it to several people who have purchased theres. Every week it sends me a weekly status update. Here is the one from last week, which was my first week using it. 

Obviously my least active day was Christmas lol. But here's what we're looking at for the week, and what it tracks. Pretty sweet! It also has a 12 step program so each week you try to be a little more active which I'm working on. This week has gone well except New Years Eve will pizza and booze I went WAY over cal in vs out and then yesterday New Years Day super hung over and our anniversary so I planned that as my weekly rest day for this week. It's ok to throw your body off once in a while though with some extra calories so it doesn't plateau. 

So now that it is January, this concludes week 5 so far of changes with success. Next week I'll finish the advance portion of Brazil Butt Lift and add in Hip Hop Abs which will take me through the end of this month. Here is the calendar I made for my fridge for January.

Last week I accomplished one of my weekly goals for December which was to start exercising in the mornings before work. I get up at 0500 and do a half hour on the elliptical. It seriously jump starts my day. It also helps when I get home if I'm too tired to be super active, I've already got some exercise in there. So what else is happening this month? I've picked up extra hours at work gotta make some money this year and pay off my debt! But also to add different types of workouts. I've got my elliptical, we've been taking the dogs for walks, but this month I'm going to try and add swimming and hot yoga. We'll see how it goes. I have to buy a swim suit, yoga mat, and hot yoga towel. 

I just bought some more supplements for this months training. I've been asked a lot what all do I take. So here is the break down to include the ones I just bought: multivitamin, joint guard, green tea, hydroxycut, CLA, BCAA, and fish oil/omega 3. I also use syntha 6 chocolate protein powder with almond milk after workouts. For my pre-workout I just bought some C4.  It seems like a lot and for me I have a REALLY sensitive stomach with pills. But this combo works out pretty well for me. If you're more interested in the brands of them let me know I'll tell you which ones I buy. I usually get all my stuff off BodyBuilding.come

We also started shopping at whole foods. I'm excited for trader joes because their specific brand is really good stuff. Whole foods was expensive (mostly the meat) but it's nice to clean out the pantry and fill it with things good for our bodies. I just bought a vitamin/mineral powder like one of those veggies in a pill but powder form. Since I have my mean green smoothie daily, I'm going to put a scoop of it in my smoothie daily for the extra nutrients because I still am not eating enough vegetables (hate them so much). Oh yeah heres my recipe for my smoothie, been asked for it a few times:

1/4 c kale

1/2 c spinrach

1 stalk celery

1/4 c strawberry

1/5 of a cucumber

3 baby carrots

1/5 of an avocado

1 small organic apple

1/5 of a tomato

1 tbs chia seed

1 tbs flaxseed

1 c water

1 c pure coconut water

This recipe makes two large cups of juice which I have one with breakfast and the other about an hour or two after breakfast. It's awesome. Takes some acquired taste though. It all tastes fine to me now so I figured adding the powdered veggie nutrients will be a cake walk. So my breakfast is the juice and 3 scrambled whole eggs (come on lets be real if you only do the whites you lose half the protein and nutrients! and besides if you're worried about cholesterol, it's not the eggs that'll kill you, it's everything else bad such as fried, greasy, fast foods).

Well last but not least, my goals for 2014…. I haven't quite mapped them all out but this is what I have in mind. Mind you that they don't all have dates and some are vague:

To get down to 110 pounds by my 26th birthday June 2nd

To get down to 15% body fat by my 26th birthday June 2nd

To get therapeutic massages on my hips 2x a week until feeling better

To run every other week (bad hips, too much impact, add elliptical, bike, and swimming)

To walk the dogs daily

To write down every day something good that happened (journal style) and review them Dec 31, 2014

To save money and pay off my Debt by Dec 31, 2014

To stick with my 13 month workout calendar so that by Dec 31, 2014 I will have completed Brazil Butt Lift, Hip Hop Abs (1 & 2), Turbo Jam, Turbo Fire, Insanity, Insanity Insane Asylum (1 & 2) so that 2015 I reward myself by getting a personal trainer. 

TO BE POSITIVE and to not be hard on myself. 

That's it for now. Next week I promise to put up a recipe page and talk more about Paelo and the Whole 30, so get ready for that! Here's some weekly motivation so get out there, work out, eat better, feel better. You can't put a cost on your health and your life. Choices, changes, and changes--you must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change. I made the choice, I took the chance, and my life IS CHANGING. It's up to you. 

The holidays bring joy and…well lots of food.

Let me start by saying MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope everyone thus far has had a wonderful holiday season.

Next let me say how much it sucks that the gym is closed on such holidays. There are plenty of people who a) do not celebrate these holidays, b) who work these holidays, and c) who just want gym time to combat their holiday food! I realized how crummy it is that they can't have a few worker bees at the gym on holidays. I work holidays, lord knows the hospital never closes. Gas stations, Jack in the Box, grocery stores for a certain amount of time, plenty of people work holidays. I wish there were some gyms that were just open!

Now that the rant and rave is over… weekly update time! Last week I posted a picture of my workout calendar with all my pretty highlighted colors on it. Well, haha… my brother came in that Thursday, then there was a party where we drank a lot on Friday, and Saturday was an entire day of family early Christmas celebration. So now, for the month of December, I have 4 naughty orange marks from days I should have worked out but didn't. I can't fault myself too much for it being the holidays and all--even though I just complained that the gym should be open…! :) Well this week has been back on track. Colin and I are changing our gym routine. Not only does a lot rely on my physical well being this year, but so does his. He is leaving for a 9 month intense super medic course with a lot of physical demands. Sunday we went ahead and tried it out, after an 1 hour and a half of pumping weights, dripping sweat, and being sore for legitimately 4 days, it worked. That's our new plan and we're sticking to it.

This week finishes up a month of Brazil Butt Lift. I think my butt is more square now like… sponge bob square pants, it's weird and I don't like it. The next two weeks is the advanced part of the program and then I'll move on to Hip Hop Abs. Today I was cleared by my orthopedic surgeon to go forth and conquer the military nursing job. So I really have to kick it in gear. I have been doing 100 push ups and 100 sit ups daily in addition to my 1-2 hours of work outs daily. I really need to be doing more cardio however so that's on me to use my elliptical, swim, light runs, etc. That's the next goal is introducing those things.

For Christmas my awesome parents got me the fitbit force. I am completely in love. http://www.fitbit.com/force So, a brief overview of what it does: it has a clock, you can use the timer function to start and stop times of workouts, it tracks steps taken, distance traveled, active minutes, stairs climbed, calories burned, hours slept, quality of sleep, and a silent alarm (which is awesome, Colin doesn't wake up now!). It also has a food diary but the cool thing is that it connects with MyFitnessPal which what I use to log my food. So based on my activity for the day and projected activity for the rest of the day, with my 500 cal deficit a week for 1 lb weight loss/weekly, it will adjust how many calories I can eat the rest of the day. It.is.AWESOME. I am super obsessed. There is the band I wear on my wrist which is stylish and gives you all those featured numbers, a phone app, and the whole overview with charts and data and stats on the website. I'm in love. So I've been tracking everything this week and have been kicking butt. I realized where part of my weight gain came from however. Christmas was yesterday we did family stuff, sat around, napped, and ate food. No gym (cause it was closed duh). I ate my usual 1600ish calories and barely even burned that much to include my BMR. CRAZY. So I think back to the last few months and all my days off which all I did was eat nap watch tv eat nap watch tv. More intake than outtake = wt gain. Bam. Not any more. This awesome thing really plays into my OCD. I'm motivated. I check it all the time. And at the end of the day if I'm not where I need to be I can do some quick exercises or take the dogs around the block. But throughout the day I really aim to meet my fitness goals and this tracks it all and keeps me going. Seriously worth the $129 for it if you're serious about your fitness goals and you don't mind being ocd. There are less complicated and less featured ones out there. It really helps sink in that my days off I have got to be active to meet my goals.

Today I also took a lovely trip to Whole Foods. Colin has decided for 2014 his goal will to be more health and fitness oriented as well. Which means, he is going to be pretty much doing the Whole 30 with me (and we will use almond milk for our protein shakes as a somewhat dairy--but no dairy other than that!). I am super stoked because that'll make it much easier for me. Not only is there the Boise Co Op and Whole Foods, Trader Joe's is right around the corner and almost built. So we have plenty of good places within 10 minutes of us for our healthy groceries. It'll be a month of struggle as far as using are recipes and creating food diversity, but we'll make it, together. I'm really excited now that I've about finished an entire month really getting good work out time and in the habit that I can now work on some additional dietary changes. I'm not going to count my chickens just yet, but I'm down to 121 now and 20% body fat. Progress!

Justin (Colin's brother) and his parents, got us two awesome recipe books: The Men's Health BIG Book of Food & Nutrition and The Healthiest Meals on Earth. That along with the Whole 30 recipes, we should be good to go. Next week we'll have our weekly grocery list and take a trip to the Co Op and Whole Foods. Obviously it's ridiculous to throw out everything in our pantry and fridge, so we'll use up what we have and anything we need comes from healthy organic sources. Your health shouldn't have a cost--so we're willing to cough up some more money to alter what we put in our bodies. Super excited!

That's it for now. I'm going to go through some recipes and make plans and grocery lists. Anything we make that tastes good I'll be sure to share on the recipe section. This week I've just been kicking up doing 10,000+ steps a day (5+ miles a day), being under the projected calorie requirements, and doing the stairs at work. Baby steps.

Happy holidays, talk to you next week. It'll be another drinking period but it'll be our last one for a while. New Year's Eve party and the 1st is our 4th year anniversary so more drinking. Thennnn we'll be right on track. Don't forget, mindful eating on the holidays! Stick to the protein and veggies and super small servings of the rest of the stuff, and don't go back for seconds unless it's for the meat!

-Nicolette

PS: Weekly motivation quotes, this first one, I'm finishing 4 weeks and I'm seeing my body change!

And if you every ask yourself this question, the answer is YES! This is the flowchart I love the most.

Try try again

Well, it's been since JULY since I've blogged. There has been a lot that has happened in the last several months. I ended July with a full month of Insanity. I learned to love it, loved the soreness, loved the energy, loved the changes my body was going through. I mentioned before August would bring Army annual training and surgery. It ended up being both at the same time pretty much. I stopped blogging because I felt I needed some privacy to deal with all the stress of my life at the time. SO what happened? And what made me blog again? To spare you all the details I'll give an abbreviated version of the last few months.

1) Annual training did a week in the field (kinda sucked at the time!!!)
2) Underwent surgery (ovary remnant and tube removed anddd a inguinal hernia repair with mesh all at the same time)
3) 2-3 days later went back to annual training and stayed on base to finish it up
4) Finished recovery from surgery and started physical therapy for pubic symphysis instability (basically the front bone of the pelvic ring sucks and hurts all the time)
5) Switched from night shift to day shift, found working out time to be way harder
6) ALL my days off filled with doctors appointments
7) Weight gain from hormone adjustment (and not the best eating habits and too tired to work out with 12 hr shifts)

That probably sums up the majority of it. I'm still doing physical therapy and massage therapy weekly. The mesh from the hernia repair is (just my luck) peeling up!! So pelvic pain from the instability and pain with the mesh. How fun! Can't get into see my surgeon until January, so we're heat packing it and see if I can form some scar tissue to tack that sucker back down. Lucky me!!!

So the reason I'm jump starting my blog again is to help keep myself accountable with healthy life style choices and of course having the support from the wonderful people in my life. According to my last post early July, I was 116. Dec 1st I started a fitness program and I was 124! According to my doctor last week I've gained 4 pounds since the end of August after surgery, and 12 pounds since I started seeing him 3 years ago (not bad  right?!) You'd think hey that's not bad, BUT the majority of those 12 pounds have been this year alone.  I've been exhausted. Sleep as much and as often as I can without feeling like it helps. Not as chipper as usual. Diet not great but not the worst. It's just discouraging to start a program and due to work or medical issues having to stop. So there we go, it was time to start up again and keep it up.

December 1st I created a workout program and have been sticking to it thus far. I haven't taken pictures and I haven't taken measurements. Definitely not the priority right now. The priority is gaining my energy back, feeling better, and trying to be pain free. I'm hoping 2014 will be a better year for all parts of my life!!! I can say from Dec 1 with my exercise program and enforcing myself to have a bed time, I've been feeling a ton better already.

So here we go Dec 1, 2013 my start weight was 124. I know for a fact from the doctors office last week I've lost 2 pounds so far. So my 2 week check in I'm 122. My goal is still about the same. I want to get down to 110. 2 down, 12 to go. See the pictures below for my motivational tools!! Since working 12 hour DAY shifts (yay!) it's been really hard to find a time to work out. No way in hell I'm getting up between 4-5ish am to work out! And it's really hard to work out after a 12 hour shift. I've made a pact with myself. Days that I have to work I work out for 1 hour and so far it's been after work. Colin has been supportive in giving up some us time so that I can work out after work. It sucks because I come home, work out, shower, and then get to spend an hour with him before my 10 pm bedtime! But we've been making it work pretty well. One of my goals is to be able to start my day with my hour work out before work instead so after work is us time. Then, on days I do not work, I work out 2 hours a day usually if Colin is free an hour of that is with him. It seems like a lot but it's working! I feel more energetic, I get plenty of rest and have a bed time, and my body is responding to it. I still have pain and that sucks. But more to come on that after the surgeon appointment in Jan.

Now, I'm on the tail end of my recovery for my surgery. I've had a lot of trauma to my abdominal and pelvic region to include 2 surgeries, a pelvic stress fracture, and the instability! So as far as abs and upper legs go, I really have to be careful and go slow (as proven with the stupid hernia thing). While I am dyingggggg to go back to Insanity, that is totally the wrong answer. I absolutely love Beach Body programs and with my crazy schedule, it really helps to work out at home with DVDs. So, I lined up the programs. I'm doing Brazil Butt Lift right now. I'll move on to Hip Hop Abs, then Turbo Jam, then Turbo Fire, THEN Insanity, and the Asylum 1 and 2. It'll be a good 8 months or so of building up to Insanity again. Good progression. Inbetween the DVD workouts, I also bought myself an elliptical as an early Christmas present. So I have some low impact cardio I get to do. Then the weight lifting I do with Colin (benching 85 lbs woo). It's a good spread!! So 1 hour a day when I work a 12, 2 hours a day on days off. So far so good. Check out the pictures below.

I literally created a calendar from Dec 1 13 to Dec 31 14 with my workout schedule 6 days a week the entire year. I put my work schedule in there and adjust to my work vs off days. Every day lists what workout I'm doing. Every week has a weekly goal to accomplish. Every month has a goal to accomplish as well. I have specific colors I highlight the days with for a rest day, workout day, and missed work out day when I didn't do an exercise. Here's my calendar for December. I've missed 1 day so far this month (out of the 18 days). So this visually motivates me to see what I've accomplished! I take all my workouts and put them into www.mapmyfitness.com  It's an awesome phone app and keeps track of my work outs to include hours worked out and calories burned. I write that to the right of each week when it's complete.

In addition to the calendar and fitness app, I saw this idea on pinterest and created it. A weight gained jar with some marbles and a weight lost jar with some marbles. 14 marbles in the left jar with my start date and weight, then 2 marbles in the right jar with my goal weight and date. I'm aiming for my goal by my 26th birthday so giving myself 6 months to make weight. It's pretty exciting actually to move a marble from the gained to the lost jar.

So rather than working on all this weight and exercise business, I know that 80% of weight loss/gain is about what you put in your body; the food you eat! I recently read the book It Starts With Food, Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life In Unexpected Ways. It's an awesome book and the program has changed many peoples lives. So, while it has some great information and I'd like to try it out, I'm not going to go full blown with it. It's really hard to do some sort of diet when your significant other isn't doing one, and you can't clean out the fridge and cabinets. It goes off the basis of the paleo diet without being obsessive and strict. Essentially you have to cut out all the crap (and the alcohol!! :( ) and base your meals off protein, vegetables, some fruit, and healthy fats (no dairy, gluten, booze, etc). So that's the basis of it. Good read and I definitely recommend it. http://www.whole9life.com/itstartswithfood/

The biggest thing I need from friends is good recipes! I really need some recipes mostly for vegetables and crock pot meals. That's my hardest thing to eat veggies in different ways and making meals on those 12 hour days. Any help with that would be awesome! After the holidays I'll have finished a solid 4.5 weeks of exercise and then I'll do the harder part of the diet clean up. In the mean time I'll just keep focusing on introducing veggies.

Well I'm tired, I've talked myself out. In some exciting side news, I'm applying to be a Nursing Officer in the Army! It'll be like going to drill as I do now, but as an officer and doing a nursing job rather than being an enlisted medic. Wish me luck!

Until next week,
Nic

And to keep up with tradition, here's the weekly motivators!

(and 2 hours is only 8%!)

Pictures, measurements, and fit test results are posted! Well, this is week 2 of Insanity. I have not skipped a work out yet. I actually bought Hip Hop Abs too so it should be here some time this week. Colin is home so my stress level has gone way way down. I'm working 3 nights this week and then drill with the good ol' Army this weekend. But next week, I'll be down to 3 a week only!! It's amazing how much free time you have when you're not working over time. This week has definitely gotten better. Let's see so I last wrote 5 days ago and I have done Insanity every day since. I can finally do the warm up without pausing it and I only take breaks during the schedule rest times--enough time to catch my breath, take a drink of water, and check my heart rate. I'm sticking in the 160s-170s so that's excellent. I'm sore every day but every day I put on those damn videos and get to it. I'm becoming fond of it I think.

This is also week two of the clean clean diet. So last week I had the Starbucks last Sunday, little indulgence on the 4th of July with some turkey croissants, chips, and couple bites of cake. Then this Sunday, like I said when I started is my day to eat whatever! I ended up having a maple bar for breakfast, ate clean the rest of the day, went to a Shakespeare play and then had a few beers at Old Chicago. Of course at Old Chicago convinced me to split mozzarella sticks and I convinced him (his idea originally) to split their "Little Big Cookie" single serving. I went way over my calories for they day, but I didn't indulge that bad. At the end of the week, I was still under.

I'm pretty sure my scale at home is lying to me. It said I was 114 lbs... which means I would have lost like 5 pounds the last few weeks. I weighed myself a few weeks ago before starting this at work on a reliable hospital grade scale and was 119.5. According to that scale I'm 116. So there's some progress being made with a healthy change.But like I said, weight loss isn't my goal. I don't want to lose the muscle I have so we'll see where my body fat is next week. I talked to Colin and have decided to incorporate some hip hop abs videos and try to lift weights 2-3 times a week to keep my muscle I've worked so hard for.

I've got some great recipes to add, so I'll be sure to make a new page for that. Insanity through Sunday, Sunday rest day/eat whatever in limits day, start again next Monday! Next Monday is also the next fitness test to see if I've really made any progress or not and some new pictures. Should be good! It's getting way easier to say no to bad foods and alcohol. Thank goodness I'm kicking those cravings in the butt.

On another note, surgery is scheduled! August 12th I'm going under the knife...joy. I'm worried about recovery and recovery time. Who knows how long/what I'll feel like. What I've heard is recovery time is about 1 to 2 weeks and strenuous exercise should wait until after 4-8 weeks of recovery depending on. I'm not excited to be out of Insanity commission for that long. The more I can get in shape now and be healthy, the faster and hopefully easier my recovery will be. Depending on my pictures and measurements after my recovery, I'll see if I'm going to start Insanity from day 1 again, or start at month 2. My goal is to do Insanity, Insanity Asylum, and Insanity Asylum 2 all before the year is over. Big changes for a healthy life!

That's it for now. Keep trucking through my work outs, get some sleep, eat well and next week we'll spice it up a bit and add some things to keep the progress coming. I must say that the MyFitnessPal and MapMyFitness are helping me keep on track too :) Almost 5 am, hope everyone is sleeping. Until next time!

-Nic

This picture definitely represents what I feel very day after Insanity. But, working out sore muscles makes the soreness disappear for a while. Feeeeeels good.

And one more good one... baby steps! That's what I'm working on, baby steps towards the overall goal of a healthier life style.

It's been a rough week

Well, this week has officially sucked. I signed up for extra hours of work and so far I've worked 30.5 out of the 68... I was on call for 12 of them and didn't have to come in. I'll be on overtime the full shift Saturday so I'm hoping I won't have to come in! Anyways, this week has definitely challenged me. I was so happy I didn't come to work Sunday night. I was sick from Sunday to Wednesday. Just started feeling better Thursday. I don't know, must have been a combination of lack of sleep, new medications messing with me, and I cut out sugars and fats so my body retaliated. Either way, this week has sucked and it's not over yet.

I hope everyone had a good 4th of July. The work shift has been SUPER busy!!! Gogogo. I finally got a break. But I feel bad, there was no one to watch my kids. Ted was shaking as of Wed night when fireworks started to go off here and there. I'm a little nervous to what I'll go home to tonight. Poor kids probably scared out of their minds. We live right up from the park so it's close proximity to the big show of fireworks and noise.

Ok so the good stuff. Dieting! Has gone great. Sunday I had some Starbucks. Tonight (Thursday night 4th of July--although it's technically Friday morning now) we had a pot luck at work. So I had some chips and a couple bites of cake I shouldn't have. Then I just ate turkey on a piece of croissant bread. So that's the worst of my diet this week. The rest will be clean. I've lost some weight just by quitting the fast food, snacking, and sugary stuff. So that's a plus. And my cravings have for the most part gone away along with the head ache. Switched to smaller portions and I'm getting used to that too. However, due to being sick and weird work schedule, I haven't been eating nearly enough every day so far this week. Hopefully next week will be better. I knew eating 5 meals a day would be challenging.

I decided to use MyFitnessPal.com after some debate. It seems to have more specific food options which I like better. So it's worked out. Add me as a friend on there! I use MapMyFitness.com as well for my Insanity workouts and any other activities that I do. I debated on getting the Fit Bit wrist band which tracks your fitness and some other awesome features as well as a heart rate monitor so I can track how many calories I am actually burning during my work outs. However, I'm saving for a tattoo, a bridal shower for my friend, and surgery. Plus there's the fact that surgery and annual training will keep me from working out for a while so I think I'll save that for Christmas gifts on my wish list this year! I'll be excited once I do get them though. Check them out! They're awesome tools for keeping on track.

Now for Insanity. The workout is insane just like my work schedule. I didn't sleep at all (as usual) Sunday or Monday nights. Monday I was in bed forever probably till 6 pm or so. I felt terrible. However, 10pm rolled around, I didn't want to let myself down so I did my first day of Insanity as planned. It was the fit test. That is no joke!! There's 8 exercises and you do each one for one minute to muscle failure essentially. I had to take a mini break half way through. It was rough. Tuesday I didn't get to workout. I did a nursing class for work 8:30a-4:30p, 3came home passed out 4:30p-6p and then worked 7p-11:0p. Lack of sleep, being tired, and a weird broken up 12 hour shift was not conducive to my work out plan. Then Wednesday came around. I worked 3p-11p so I worked out before work for the second day on the Insanity program. Ridiculous!!!! Ok if there is one thing I hate it's cardio. I'm not a runner, never have been, hell I got a pelvic stress fracture from running. I'm a weight lift kind of girl and I do enjoy the elliptical but that's it. So first day of real Insanity sucked. I stopped a thousand times. My heart rate was definitely upper 160s according to my little pulse oximiter. Went to work then slept from 11:45ish pm to around 8:30a. Still didn't feel well but forced myself to do Insanity day three in the afternoon before work.

It's tough. Even after the fit test I was super sore, especially in my calves. I took a rest day from my weird work schedule. After day two though I was even more sore!! But when you're sore, the best way to relieve it is to stretch and work out some more. So soreness and all, I'm sticking to it. It's a lot a lot of cardio work. I feel like I'm dying and sweating every time and pausing it every 5 minutes. But it's good stuff. I'm definitely excited for it. Shaun T or however you spell the guys name who created Insanity also has Hip Hop Abs which looks fun so I might get that too for an extra kick. But so far 3 days of Insanity down.

It looks like surgery is going to be Aug 5 or 6. So I'll most likely be out of commission from Insanity and other crazy workouts probably a good month which is going to suck. The better shape I can get in now, the faster recovery will be. That's my motivating factor right now. Not to lose weight, not to trim down, not to do anything but get stronger for a quicker recovery. Like I said, this first go 'round I won't be too hard on myself because I've got bigger fish to fry. The good thing is that my diet is going great cutting out all that fatty greasy sugary stuff, the headache is gone and soreness, well I'm pushing through it. I'm excited for the results come the end of this month.

I did take pictures and measurements earlier in the week, but they're on my home computer. I'll post those when I get a chance. You can add me on MyFitnessPal and MapMyFitness to track my progress with me and start tracking your own goals and keeping honest with your fitness/dieting!! Best way to stay on top of it is to journal it and have support. And I think that's helped me a lot so far. Typically I wouldn't even do what I've done this week. It's a stressful ridiculous work week being sick Colin being gone new meds making me feel terrible etc and normally I would have turned to fast food and no exercise, just sleep. Progress is being made!

The kids are getting antsy. I need to get back on track with getting them out of the house 1-2 X a day. It's just been really hot n I haven't wanted to get out of bed. So that will be next weeks goal is doing more with them. That's it! Insanity sucks! I die every time! But I feel great afterwards! I'll have to post some recipes soon. My new fav is cottage cheese. Never tried it in 25 years and it's sooo good. Ok, that's it for now.  Hoping this week ends swiftly and on a good note. Colin comes home Sunday so I'm hoping a lot of this stress will go away.

Have a good day, hope everyone had a good safe 4th eating grilled food, having some beers, and playing with fireworks--without injuries that is. Who knows what the ER is like, I only work postpartum and it was an explosion up here any ways!

-Nic

PS This picture by the way is no joke! Food is my stress relief and exercise is the last thing on my mind. But with all that I'm going through, I feel WAY better after eating good and doing my Insanity work outs. Night and day.

Laying out the plan

Well, it's really really early and all my patients are sleeping or feeding their babies. SO! Here we go. Quick update on life...working WAY too much. 45ish hours last week, 68 hours this week. Had to send the dogs to my mom's for a few days--felt too bad for them sleeping and then sleeping a ton more. Had several doctors appointments, good and bad news. Looks kind of grave but things will get worked out. Surgery definitely in the works! Onward to the healthy stuff.

I got my Insanity box in the mail. It looks pretty intense/insane. A nurse on my floor just started it this week and said she's pretty sore. I think I can handle the work outs (maybe not) but my biggest problem is going to be the food! The program comes with a giant nutrition book. You're supposed to eat (5) 300-500 calorie meals a day depending on your goals. They have 5 different food sections and you pick one meal per section for all 5 sections per day. It's really clean stuff the problem is preparing it and cooking it during the days I work. This week is going to be a trial run for sure. I smoothie/juice most of my fruits and vegetables as well as having a protein shake after work outs which takes up about (2) 300 calorie meals anyways. So it might not be that bad... just pick 3 from the book per day and make sure I'm getting my protein. It's really difficult on a night shift schedule to eat 1400-ish calories.

I'm going to track everything with LoseIt.com (the iPhone app). It has food, exercise, sleep, measurements, all sorts of fun things to track and goals to work towards. There's also MyFitnessPal.com but I think I like LoseIt better. Check it out! They're both neat websites/apps. I will also work on my sleeping habits and use the iPhone app "Sleep Cycle" it's $0.99. Kind of gives you an idea of the quality of sleep. I'm open to suggestions if anyone has better apps to use.

Laying out the plan:
Monday-Saturday is the Insanity work out
Sunday is a rest day (and my mandatory cleaning day/take the dogs out for a hike day)
I think Sunday will also be the grocery shopping day.
This week will be my absolute last week working over time and I'll be back to my 3 in a row. So whatever the day before my 3 in a row is, I will use that as a food preparation day so that my meals are semi-lined out for the work week to come.

Goals:
The goals I am focusing on for now are my fitness goals/measurements.
I would like to maintain my weight between 105-115 where ever my muscle mass/body fat will take me. I'm around 117ish right now. My pre-Army weight was 103ish but I would much rather be 110-115 with muscle. So just a few pounds weight loss. I'm more focused on leaning up and changing my body composition from less fat to more muscle. I'll track my weight same day, same time, same scale every week as well as measurements. Most likely it will be Sunday when I wake up.
I would like my body fat to be around the 15-17% mark (I'm in the lower 20's I think, will check tomorrow on Monday).
I would like my 2 mile Army run time to be in the 16 minute mark--anywhere in there! Push ups to remain in the 60s. Sit ups to hit the 80s-90s. For all my non Army friends, it's a fitness test where you do 2 minutes of push ups and 2 minutes of sit ups till muscle failure. Then do a 2 mile run. I've passed every PT test in the unit and the next one is in October so I want to kick some butt on it.

We'll see how it goes. I'm not going to stress myself on accomplishing these goals too quickly. I am realistic in the fact I know I will have interruptions in my exercise regime :(. I'm going to have surgery in August and there's the good 'ol Army Annual Training (AT) so those will postpone my progress to be physically fit and will delay the Insanity program but I'll do as much as I can until then and pick up when I'm healed/done with AT. But at least those times I can do my best with the nutrition side of things. I'll keep everyone updated on that, hopefully have more concrete plans this week.

That's it for now, time to round on my awesome patients and finish up the shift. Stay cool in this ridiculously hot weather and drink water! I will post pictures and measurements tomorrow. Have a good day.

-Nic