OK. So it's been a long time since I've used this journal. A very long time.

I started back up today. I joined the 50 Million Pound Challenge and I went back to the gym. I'm not in as bad shape as when I started originally. I started out at 25 minutes on the eliptical/cross trainer 45 minutes of weight training and capped it off with 10 minutes on the bike while lifting 5 pound weights.

For breakfast I had Special K Red Berries cereal with 1/2 cup of low fat milk.

For lunch after the gym I had a Lean Cuisine Panini - Southwest Chicken, Broccoli with some blue cheese dressing(my splurge) and a Clementine.

For a snack I had a Fiber Bar(generic Fiber One bar)

For dinner we're having whole wheat pasta with broccoli and garlic. I just need to think of a protien to go with it.

Tags: food, work out

These are Jillian Michael's exercise DVDs. I bought them on Amazon.com because I had my gift cert. from my dad from christmas. I bought these and the Biggest Loser Cardio and other video.

I haven't even touched them and I've had them about 2 weeks. Alex has been giving me a hard time about going to the gym because I put him in "day care" for about an hour and a half and he can't leave and come find me. So it makes him pissy.

So I figured I'd try one of these out today because, well, first off I spent the money and second, at least I can workout and Alex can see me. So he knows it's important to work out.

I have 4 words for you.

OH MY FUCKING GAWD!!!!!!!!!!!

I managed to make it through the first video which was toning and sculting the "front" of your body and your quads but GAH! I thought I was gonna DIE!

The whole thing involved a step and a few small dumbbells. There was one girl doing the "modified version" for the "beginners" but it wasn't much of a modified version. I had to modify some of the exercises myself just because I was too damned fat to do them the way they were doing them. BUT I didn't quit. I pushed and made it through. Granted I had to stop at one point and catch my breath but I still did the WHOLE thing.

I go to the gym and I work out for an hour and a half. I do 30 minutes on the cross trainer. I do 45 minutes or so of weight training and about 15 minutes or so of stretching. I thought, hey, I'm not in bad shape for a fat girl. I should be good.

YEAH RIGHT! HARDLY! This was a 30 minute video and I swear to god I thought I was going to DIE.

It actually says on the beginning of the video that you should NOT attempt these workouts within 3-4 hours of a large meal or 1 hour of a snack. I had just had a small bowl of cereal about 20 minutes before and I was like, "Yeah, WHATEVER! I'm not going to get cramps". They don't tell you that because you're going to get CRAMPS. They tell you that so you don't PUKE! I'm glad I was at least 20 minutes from the bowl of cereal because otherwise it woulda come right up!(ok, sorry, TMI! I know!)

I knew Jillian was an animal but O M F G!

Tags: the biggest loser, work out
Current Location: My Office
Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Children Screaming(GAH where is SILENCE when I need it?)

I haven't been online much. I've been working my butt off trying to get some parties booked(anyone in the CT area want to have a Passion Party????)

Anyway, I have also been spending about an hour and a half a day at the gym. Which is great because I need it and I only have 62 more days til Convention in Las Vegas. HOWEVER, it also takes about 2 hours out of my day by the time I get Alex into the car, get to the gym, drop him in day care, workout, get him out of day care, come home. I need to either get over it, or find a way to incorporate maybe some phone calls into my workout(I have done this in the past and usually get comments from women that they're amazed that I can workout as hard as them and still talk on the phone! What can I say? I'm a Gemini!)

Todays workout consisted of 30 minutes on the "cross trainer" then the rest was weight training. My new gym has more machines than the old one did and a stretching room. Which, btw, I never realized was really all that important but it really IS. It's no wonder I was so damned sore before. I never stretched when I went to Planet Fitness. Now every day before I get on that Cross Trainer(which is really just an eliptical with a fancy name if you ask me) I make sure I go in and spend about 5 minutes stretching. I'm still sore but not NEARLY as bad.

Tomorrow I'll do some Yoga at home. My gym eliminated the yoga classes that I was so excited about unfortunately. However the other Golds in the immediate area have a few every week that I can go to free of charge. So I may hit a few. The problem is that they're at really crappy times(like dinner time!) which makes it difficult to get there.

Tags: work out
Current Music: Silence

Ha ha! I bet you thought I fell off the face of the earth and well, I almost had! Hubby got a job and was sleeping all day. So I had no child care. No child care meant no gym. PLUS once I saw that I had lost 30 pounds, I had a serious self sabotage moment and I stopped doing EVERYTHING.

So, here I am, back again. I switched gyms. I am now going to Gold's. For an extra $15 a month, I get child care. A maximum of 2 hours per day 7 days a week. I get classes at ANY Gold's gym in the area(some of them have Yoga classes. Mine did but they seem to have eliminated them in the last week) and 2 FULL SIZED floors of gym equipment. Yes, my other gym was fairly cheap at $20 a month but it had none of those things.

I have been there 5 out of the last 8 days. Alex is still getting used to the idea of me dropping him off and leaving him in the "Kids Club" room but he's always fine and well behaved while he's in there. The ladies in there are very nice too and just adore him.

They have 2 different kinds of eliptical machines and I actually found one that I like. So instead of the treadmill, I've been doing that for cardio for 30 or more minutes a day. Plus weight training plus the bike.

I have eliminated most of the processed foods from our diet since MIL moved out. We've been having things like Pork Tenderloin, Steamed Carrots and Potatoes for dinners. I also have made my favorite Mexican Pork and Sweet Potato stew(WW recipe).

I am extremely glad that MIL moved out. Granted it's been rough on the finances but I have control of my house back and it's been especially good for my self esteem.

I have decided NOT to even look at a scale. I know what I need to do to lose the weight. I need to eat sensibly and workout. There's no magic formula to it. So I'm staying the hell away from the scale. All it does is make me obsess or make me feel like binging.

I was watching the Biggest Loser the other night(I believe it was an episode from 2 weeks back because I was behind. Thank goddess for DVR's) and Jillian had commented something to the fact that losing weight was also an emotional thing. If you don't deal with the emotions that helped you GET fat in the first place, you'll put all the weight right back on.

So, considering that my emotional issues involved in my weight gain have to do with people that either A.)I no longer associate with, B.)can no longer associate with or C.)are unwilling to do what is necessary to deal with the issues between us, I am going to have to find ways around that.

Speaking of food and weight loss, it's quarter to 4 and I haven't eaten lunch yet because I've been so busy working and getting other stuff done. BAD idea. Gotta go get some lunch.

See ya'll!

Current Music: SILENCE(isn't it lovely???)

I kind of took this week off. I've been absolutely exhausted and needed to. Plus my workout buddies were busy and such. So I kinda blew everything off.

I've been REALLY busy on top of everything else and worried constantly about money and bills.

Michael and I did Yoga last night. I got a video called "Simple Yoga" and a book that goes with it at Borders on my Anniversary earlier this month. So I wanted to try it out. It was a good workout and Michael loved it. :D Alex is asking me to do it again this morning.

I'm getting back to the gym in the morning. I'm trying to get used to the new schedule now that Mike is working nights.

Tags: workout
Current Location: pig chair
Current Music: Scooby Doo meets Laurel and Hardy

I took the weekend off. Not really by choice. OK, really it kind of WAS by choice.

Friday I was supposed to go to the gym with Donna and I slept right through. OK, honestly I heard her downstairs and I did NOT want to get up. I was in pain from that EVIL elliptical and there was NO WAY I was going to work out that day.

Saturday I had to work and so did Donna. Plus the guys were at a Patriot's Exhibition Game. So I had Alex and DJ while Donna worked.

Then today I had scrapbooking from 11 to 4. So while I could have gotten up early and gone, I wasn't in the mood.

SO, I am off to bed right now to be sure I get up in the AM and get my ass there.

Tags: workout
Current Location: MY BED
Current Music: HGTV

This week has been a bit "erratic". Shout out to my new workout buddy trillian921

I went to Ambre's place to check out her complex's on site gym on Tuesday. Taught her how to use the "universal" machine. This one was REALLY a universal considering you had to do all of your exercises on the one machine. There was definitely something about her treadmill because I was SORE the next day.

Took both Ambre and Donna with me on Wednesday. I was actually at the gym til almost 8 that day. So almost 2 hours.

This morning I got up by myself because Mike wasn't working. I argued with myself for about 15 minutes about whether I was going or not and the "sensible me" won. So I dragged my ass out of bed and got dressed.

22 minutes on the treadmill(I thought I was gonna die today) Top speed 4.5 average speed 3.1. Average incline 2.0 with a top incline of 3.0. Vertical distance of 120.

45 minutes or so on the universals doing upper body strength training.

5 minutes on the fucking eliptical. I swore I would never get on that fucker and I guess I lied to myself.

No bike today. I think I'm overworking my legs. I think I may even skip strength training tomorrow and just do the treadmill and some stretching. I'm in a good amount of pain today. It was my husband and I's 15th anniversary and we went out shopping at the mall. By the time we were done my feet and legs were SCREAMING in pain. I had to go to the Dollar Store and buy a small bottle of Motrin just to get through our dinner with my Dad.

Honestly, if I wasn't taking Donna tomorrow, I'd probably stay home. But since she doesn't have her own membership yet, I have to get up and go.

Tags: workout

Took my friend Donna to the gym with me today. It was nice to have someone to go with who isn't lazy as my husband. She held her own for sure. :D

22 on the treadmill. Average incline was 1.5 with a high of 2.5. Vertical distance was 101. Average speed was 3.3 with a highest speed of 5.1! I can only run for 30 seconds but I'm still running and I do it at least 3 times. A month ago I couldn't even attempt that!

Upper body strength training today.

20 minutes on the bike with a max resistance of 10.

When I was done, Donna wanted to weigh herself. So we went into the trainer's office to use the "doctor type" scale. I checked it twice because I almost started crying. Donna was like, Um, are you going to cry because it's bad or because it's good. I look at her and said "Well, according to this I lost 16 pounds in the last 2 weeks. I think that's a good thing!"

When I weighed myself in there 2 weeks ago, I was down to 330. Mike weighed himself in there the other day and was 255 and he checked it on the "bathroom type" scale in the locker room and it was the same. So the scale is correct. Today I weighed in at 314! 314! 3 fucking 14! *****doing a HUGE happy dance***** Another 10 pounds and I should be able to fit into my 24s!

Tags: weighing in, workout
Current Location: pig chair
Current Music: fucking football(lord save me from a husband obsessed with football!)

Quick recap of my workout yesterday.

I took Mike with me. He was about as useless as tits on a bull and about as lazy as a bull. While I RAN on the treadmill, he plopped along. While I worked my ass off on the universals, he did a few and sat on the mats and "stretched". While I did the bike, he did too and while he was at a 10 resistance the whole time, he only did like 15 minutes. So, yeah, my husband is LAZY.

I only got about an hour because Mike had an interview at 3 PM that he had to be at and wanted to shower beforehand.

Anywho, 22 minutes on the treadmill. Highest speed was 5.0. Average speed was 3.3. Average incline was 1.5 and vertical distance was 89.

20 minutes of universals. It was "lower body" strength training day. I STILL hate the fucking rear leg lift machine and it still hates me!

20 minutes on the bike. Highest resistance was 10.

Tags: workout
Current Location: Pig Chair
Current Music: HGTV

This is a backdated entry just so I know I made it.

I know I made it to the gym today. I went after therapy.

My usual time on the treadmill but don't remember my stats.

Upper Body Strength Training.

Regular time on the bike.