Hundred Pushups

The husband and I started this program tonight. It was better than I was expecting, besides the fact that I am so weak I have to do girly knee pushups. But it could be worse, at least I can do girly pushups right! And the sad initial test - 16 girl pushups. I have a long way to go but I'll get there.

So the gist of the program is that by following a schedule of pushups for 6 weeks you should be able to perform 100 consecutive pushups by the end of the 6 weeks. It seems a tall order but I am willing to give it a go. For more information go here.

While the program is free on the website, I went ahead and bought the app for $2 to just make it a little easier. A friend recommended it so I figured why not - the husband bringing home $75 in iTunes gift certificates from his recent sales op didn't hurt! The app is pretty nifty since it tells you how many pushups, then gives you a rest timer and then your next set of pushups. So easily something that you could do yourself but just handier than doing it yourself.

Day 1 pushup total - 48

Bathing Suit Season!

I realize that for many of us Northerners bathing suit season is a long way off. But it dawned on me today that for me, bathing suit season is exactly 3 months away! Earth Day is my annual dip into the chilly waters and it is coming up sooner than I would like. But the good news is is that I do have 3 months, 12 weeks, to get my body in shape before baring it to the world.

That means 12 weeks of running. If I run 16 miles a week, 4 4 mile days, that is 192 miles. That is 7 marathons! That is a lot of running. But it should get me in shape right? If 192 miles doesn't get me in shape I don't know what will!

It also means 200 pushups. That's right, 200. I am going to do the Hundred Pushup program, but I have to do the pushups on my knees :( Then hopefully I will do it again but actually do real pushups. Now I don't necessarily need to be able to do 100 actual pushups, but being able to whip out 25 at any given time would be nice.

It further more means a VERY strict diet. Back to counting calories (which I never should have stopped doing), limiting salt, and cutting back on alcohol. I am going for less meat, less carbs, and less cheese (which are 3 of my favorite food groups!)

So Monday I will be up and running, literally, at 6am. Gym on Tuesday and Wednesday, running again Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It's a pretty strict schedule but I can do it! Yay exercise!

Losing It.

No clever title today, no witty post. I am losing it, I am losing my shaky hold on sanity and slipping into the dark. Not somewhere I want to be. I know I shouldn't need validation from others but you come to expect things from people close to you, you just can't help it. I don't like to think that I need people more than they need me. I feel isolated and the bridges I thought I had . . . Well let's just leave it at that.

The Master Cleanse

Day 1 1 Day.

Ok, so my sister finally convinced me to try the Master Cleanse. She always raves about it and how great she feels afterwards. Even her husband has done it several times and I figure if he has done it more than once the results must be worth it. But really what won me over was the lure of losing 10 pounds. I mean, who wouldn't love to lose 10 pounds in 3 or 4 days. And after a weekend of eating in Maine I needed it!

For the cleanse you need 6 lemons per day you decide to do it and I had decided on 4 days, Tuesday through Friday. So I went to the grocery store and bought 20 lemons, which I knew wasn't enough but I figured I could always go get more, plus they were really big lemons! I am thinking this is going to be a piece of cake, I love lemonade so this will be awesome, drinking lemonade all day. I have done fasts before and they aren't terrible so I am mentally prepared, so I thought.

I wake up on day one, Tuesday, feeling great. My kids slept all night and didn't wake up until 7:15, which let me assure you is a rarity and one I treasure. We all get downstairs and the kids play while I start juicing my lemons, with a hand juicer nonetheless. I put 5 of my big lemons in a gallon jug, added some maple syrup, and some cayenne powder, filled it up with water and poured myself a big ole glass.

The first initial reaction, besides the burning in my sore throat, was that it wasn't that bad. It was actually pretty good, maybe could have been a bit sweeter, but all in all I was happy. I mean, I wished I hadn't started when I had a sore throat because let me tell you a day of lemon juice did not make it feel better. I finish my first glass and am feeling good. Went and dropped Amelia off at preschool came back home with James. I decided that I wouldn't go to the gym, what with the only drinking I figure that working out would be a bad idea. Had myself another glass of the lemonade (less cayenne this time made it slightly less painful on my throat). Then went out to Target to try to find a better juicer, which I completely forgot!

By the time lunch rolled around I still was doing alright, I mean I wanted to eat because my kids were. I can see where the cleanse would be infinitely easier if you didn't have to make food for others. After the kids were up for their nap I entered my typical snacking time. And this was HARD. I found myself looking in the fridge countless times, only to close the door and sigh. But I was hanging tough. I busied myself and waited for the kids to wake up so I could take them to the doctor.

Then I started to get a headache. And little waves of nausea. I tried drinking some more juice because I figure I needed the sugar boost, but it was making my stomach upset and heartburn was threatening to set in. I drank a glass of water instead. I called my brother-in-law on the way to the doctor to try to get a little perspective on what I was feeling. He was on day 2 of his cleanse and I figured a little solidarity might help. He said it was normal and it would go away, stay strong! All this time the headache was only getting worse.

We make it through the doctor's appointment, double cases of bronchitis and antibiotics all around thank you very much, and I am not feeling any better. I call my sister, this instigator of all this misery. She tells me it is the toxins leaving my body, usually this happens on day 3 so I should be happy that I am getting it out of the way. Stay strong, stick with it. I can't even fathom making the kids dinner so they got hot dogs and cheese sticks. At that point the simple act of walking across my kitchen was making me light headed, nauseous, and it was starting to hurt to just have my eyes open.

That was the point where I broke. I ate a banana. Then I ate a sandwich. I pulled myself together just enough to get the kids in bed, which was no easy feat and took a little over an hour, and then I promptly passed out on the couch. The Master Cleanse is not for me.

Losing It - 2012 Edition!

I'm back! Hopefully for the whole year. Admittedly last year fizzled out a lot faster than I had hoped and not only here. I lost 16 pounds in the first 12 weeks of 2011 and then gained 4 back to end the year with a 12 pound loss. Not very impressive considering how far I have to go. So a new year, a new start, a new challenge (or 5!)
Challenge 1: Run 16 miles a week.
Challenge 2: Complete the Hundred Pushup Program
Challenge 3: Cut drastically back on the amount of meat I eat (notice I did not say quit eating meat!)
Challenge 4: Get my compulsive snacking under control.
And here is the big one
Challenge 5: Hit my 50 pound weight loss milestone, get down into the normal BMI range, and hopefully lose 30 pounds.

I know that this may seem like a lot and trust me, it seems like a lot, but I need to take control this year. If anyone follows my LoseIt! posts on Facebook you can sort of figure out how much I snack given how many calories I log running, interval training, and doing Bob Harper's yoga.

So here we go again!

Calories Burned

I have been going along on this weight loss journey counting my calories and exercising. I have just been going with what Lose It! or my treadmill tells me I am burning, and not really thinking much of it. Well the other day I decided to strap on my heart rate monitor and crunch some numbers.

Running - I run at 5 mph on the treadmill, so not killing it by any means, but I get it done. The other day I ran for 40 minutes. According to Lose It! I burned 416 calories. My treadmill had me at 417 after a 5 minute cool down. So those have been pretty close all along. According to my heart rate monitor, an Iron Man, my average heart rate was 157 for the 40 minutes of exercise (I did not include the cool down) and the calories burned was 740-something! Wow. That was a big difference so I decided to use EBSCalc on the iPod touch which has a calorie burned calculator. According to that I had burned like 640-something.

It sort of makes sense to me, I do have a ridiculously high heart rate so any calculations based on that might be off a little. Those calculators also take my age and weight into consideration and my treadmill, not so much. So it got me thinking - how many calories am I really burning during the 30 Day Shred? So this morning I used my heart rate monitor again.

The Shred - A 25 minute circuit training video by Jillian Michaels. I am currently at Level 3 and it kicks my butt pretty good. According to Lose It! 25 minutes of circuit training burns 261 calories (267 calories at the beginning of the year!). According to my heart rate monitor my average heart rate was 137 and I burned 360 calories. And EBSCalc tallied my calories burned at 320.

So I am still tracking my calories with Lose It! and will be sticking with their ideas of calories burned. I figure that it has worked so far, 13 pounds this year and nearly 40 total! Also, I am sure that I underestimate some food choices so it all comes out in the end. It has been an interesting little experiment, teaching me a little more about exercise every day!

Feeling Overwhelmed

I don't know if it is a result of being trapped inside by the cold or what but I have been feeling alone lately. I love where we live but I am sad that I am not closer to either my parents or my sisters. We moved away from our friends, not by a lot but by enough. And I am sure it is just the weather because people always stay in more when the weather sucks, and it sure has sucked this month.

I love my family and I wouldn't trade what I have for anything. I feel very blessed in my life. I do wish that we had more friends in the stage of life we are. It is hard to try to balance family life and still hang out with our friends, sans kids. If we had a babysitter it would be easier but how do you find a babysitter? I mean seriously, how? I had a number, but Chuck had to go and throw it away so now I am back to square one.

And Chuck traveling just makes it that much harder. Trying to make it work out with two kids all day and night, no break, it is exhausting. I finally figured it out tonight the worst part; putting James to bed is usually my down time, I don't have to worry about Amelia, the house, the cat, anything. I just nurse James and close my eyes and relax. I don't have that now. I either nurse James while Amelia runs rampant and naked through the house, or while reading Amelia books. I really miss my time with James.

Amelia also has been trying every last nerve I have. I realized tonight that I really need to learn some patience and anger management. It is very frustrating trying to manage dinner with no help. Not just making it, but eating it as well. I have mastered making it with the help of a little tv time and the walker, but eating it, that is another story. Amelia still gets distracted when eating if she is not getting a lot of attention so when I have to feed James she sort of loses the plot. And then if I focus on Amelia, James ends up throwing his food everywhere. I swear after a meal it looks like a bomb went off in a supermarket.