Food!

Chicken with Mushrooms, and zucchini pasta.

Soon I will upload all the pics of food I've been eating lately. 

Until then, here's some recipes:

chocolate peanut butter magic

Anything from this blog

chocolate peanut butter cream pie

Chicken with Mushrooms

Spicy Chipotle Chicken Enchilada

Zesty Lemon Carrot Salad

Pasta with Tomato and Almond Pesto

Bright blessings!

Today's Mantras

A little obsessed

So.... I own two new Jillian DVDs. I went to Target looking for Ripped In 30, and found Extreme Shed and Shred, which I had been wanting as well. An examination of the nearby end cap held the originally sought DVD, and at 10 bucks apiece I got them both. I had been curious about Ri30 because some of the reviews I read said she was mean, unprofessional and had very inappropriate language. Since the preview for it seemed good, I wanted it for the exercises. I was half way through previewing the first level, before I realised the cussing I'd read about seemed to not be there. Not to mention, Jillian didn't seem to be mean, just her usual tough love, stop making excuses self. When level 1 was done I re-watched it and found the only cuss word was ass - as in badass.
ES&S seems fun.
Now I'm in a dilemma. Both seem like good options to start next month, since I'll be done with my mini shred tomorrow. I know I can still do the mini shred with my 12s but now I'm wondering if that will be progressing too fast. 8s still offer some challenge. They both came with meal plans I'll be looking into, since I know I like a lot of her recipes. I actually kind of miss being part of her site, and my MIL says you can now track exercises by DVD if it's one of hers. Cool.
But what to do? I like doing month long programs, but since I already had a plan am I flaking on myself? Or is the fact that I'm exercising the point, even if I change the plan?
I'll ask my fiancée what he thinks.

Also, much rejoicing for my MIL has replaced her 10 yr old scale with a new digital one. It does body analysing and according to it, my bone density is 7.1% of my body weight. According to the booklet, that's high. I've always said there's such thing as big bones, hehe. I also retain lots if water. How fin
Sleepy time, goodnight.

WWI, Rocking Shoulders

Today's Weight: 206.2
 Difference: -1.4
Total Difference:  -5.0
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Hmmm, k personally I think .5 of that is water weight, yesterday I weighed in at 205.7 and today my fingers are a tad swollen. Just keep swimming! I really hope to break 200 by the end of August.
I'm going to be trying something for the next week/until the end of my mini shred. In the mornings at my parent's house, I'm going to within 15 minutes of waking up do [and did this morning, it was a great wakeup]:
5 Lunge Jumps ea leg
8 Weighted Burpees [with 12's! 6 months ago I couldn't do more than 3 regular burpees in a row!]
Cable Punches, 30 sec ea leg
3 Long Jumps [1 long jump, 3 short back jumps]
10 Push Up Jacks


I think a tiny bit of cardio in the morning maybe a good thing. Guess I'll see in a week or two. I still intend on doing the second mini shred with the bigger weights after this, but if the morning cardio doesnt seem to be working out I'm going to add in some Jillian kickboxing, I know I got results with that, and I miss doing it. I need to get the dvd back from my MIL, who I don't think has really used it since I lent it to her. I like me some short intense workouts. I have a few written down too, might try that too. Ahhh so many options to be active.

Also, I'm very impressed by my shoulders/back:

I'm getting my fantastic back back! The muscles are really starting to show again, at least in the upper area. Whoo-hoo. I do hate that pictures seem to be doing no justice to my biceps, they are getting harder and more defined. Oh well, I know theyre there

Hope you're having a good day!

BL, Weight, and Zucchini

Its annoying, while watching the Biggest Loser from the beginning, how many people think that when they're upset and their trainer says 'lets go workout', that they feel punished. none of them seem to get that they're being shown a new way to deal with stress. Instead of eating, they can exercise.


Today was one of those sucky days, where I was feeling good about my weight and body so I feel it's a good time to take progress pics. Well, there seems to be no difference since the end of my Body Revolution. It felt like such a blow, I'm feeling good, haven't been drinking, working out [as well as tackling a huge cleaning project with good results], making good food choices, and the weight seems to be taking its time going away, but it has gone some. So to see that I'm not making a difference like I felt I had. Oh well, again, won't stop me from doing what I should be. Just feels crappy.

I have finally made zucchini pasta, and mm mm tastes good. Totally want to make a lasagna with zucchini for  the noodles and see how it turns out.

See you for my weigh in in a couple of days

Grr

Today's Weight: 207.6
 Difference: +1.1
Total Difference:  -3.6
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This weekend was a difficult one for me in terms of food. I ate out way more than usual.  Now I still made good choices for most of the eating out. And on Sunday, my breakfast after yoga was good....until my MIL ordered a plate of hash. I decided to eat just a spoonful of it... which turned into half the plate.  Whoops, apparently a red-light food. Before that I had oatmeal with a side of 2 eggs, I felt so good. And dinner that night was at The Old Spaghetti Factory, which I ate half of my pasta dish, but ate a plate of broccoli and had some of the starters ordered. So yeah, I'm thinking there's some water weight going on. Plus, I salt loaded yesterday because I'm working in the heat again. This is not an excuse, I should have made better choices and had a little more self control. I just hope next week will have better results.

Today is the start of Level 2 on my mini-shred. Yay!. well, actually, whaaaaa! I hate level 2, and now I'm doing it with heavier weights. Oh well, only way to be done with it is to go through it.
Between the big cleaning project, the regular cleaning, and needing to workout, I'm going to have a busy day!
Finally found a decent exercise short last night, even though it's a tad longer than I wanted it. I don't understand why they seem to think the fat people don't need/want shorts for the summer. All the shorts available seem to be the booty volley-ball/basketball shorts. I like wearing something to my knees, thanks.
But yay Walmart came through.

Phase 3 Review

Phase 3

Workout 9:
Length: 36 min
Ease: 4.5/5

[My] Avg Cal: 293

Workout 10:
Length: 34 min
Ease: 4/5


[My] Avg Cal: 301

Workout 11:
Length: 35 min
Ease: 5/5
[My] Avg Cal: 314

Workout 12:
Length: 35 min
Ease: 4.75/5
[My] Avg Cal: 314

Cardio 3:
Length: 33 min
Ease: 5/5
[My] Avg Cal: 308

First off, the cardio is a bitch and I hated doing it. It seemed more like 2 steps up, not one.
Weeks 9 & 10 were nicely challenging, very good about making me feel like I'd progressed.
Weeks 11 &12, were hard. I mean kill-you hard, but at the same time, it flew by. I was sad about making it to the end, I wanted to keep doing those weeks.
Warning, this phase is not great for those with knee issues. There isn't an issue with modifying to suit your knees, but you have to do it alot.
Also, while it may seem corny,  I definitely say listen to and believe in Jillian's cool down speeches in Workouts 11&12. It's a great pick-me-up

Exercise Plan and WWI

Today's Weight: 206.5
 Difference: -0.4
Total Difference:  -4.7
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[I skipped the 4th of July's weigh in because it was celebrated away from my regular scale, the other one is too unreliable]


So I have a very... odd workout schedule for the next few weeks. I started too late in the month to do the 30DS in full*, and also, I wanted to work in my Sunday yoga classes.  Getting a good rhythm on the weekends right now to workout is proving difficult, which is why I have decided to not try to do 2 workouts in one day on Sundays.
So indeed, it's more like a 18-day routine.
5 days on each level and a yoga class, for 6 days of workouts. Today is day 3 of level 1.
I have kicked it up a notch by upping my weights to 8. I'm hoping that if the 18-day thing goes well, I can repeat it again with my 12s. Upping the handweights has made a difference. Level 1 always seemed somewhat easy, the 8s make it challenging again. I kinda dread doing it with 12s, hehe.
Have a good weekend!

*before the dress fitting at the beginning of next month

Body Rev Results

 

These look like poor results and not a good plug for the program, right?

That's somewhat true. These pictures do not adequately illustrate a few things. For one, those pants became looser, especially in the tummy.  2, my arms became alot stronger, more muscled . 3, my endurance shot through the roof. 4, I graduated from 5's being a challenge, to using 8's, and now have 12's to challenge myself. I never thought I could get up to 12's.

So why the poor results?

I'm not sure. I mean, I lost no weight the first month, but 1 the first 2 weeks were not particularly challenging to my fitness level, 2 I may have been building muscle. Phase 2 included my diet going into a tailspin because of my job. I don't eat much fast food, because everything that sounds good to eat is too high in calories, and that makes eating out a bummer. However, out of necessity, I began eating out several times a week. Also, my drinking....got heavier than expected on the weekends. I had a no weigh in challenge going, which helped me not see what the drinking and fast food were doing, not that the fast food could be helped a majority of the time. I gained 5 lbs. Which leads to Phase 3, where I barely shed that which I gained in phase 2.  

I expect that my second time around with this will be much more satisfactory.

I will still recommend it to anyone. I'm not a success story, and it's my on fault.

Phase 3 review later