Days 118-124 Get Fit Challenge...To Maintain or Not To Maintain

Monday

Blair decided to do the same lifting workouts that I do this week to see if it is something that would work for him or not. Today was Back Day and minus a couple of exercises I think it went okay for him. Food wise he is doing well so that is good.

Tuesday

Today was Bicep and Tricep day for lifting. I don't think this workout went very well for Blair as a lot of the exercises put a lot of strain on his shoulders. I think we'll need to contact the trainer he was working with in New Zealand to see if he can set him up with something since he is fully aware of all of his shoulder, calf, and knee issues and I am not educated enough to come up with something that will work out better for him

Wednesday

No gym today as we spent the whole day meeting with our wedding vendors down where we are getting married about 2.5 hours away. While we accomplished quite a bit I think the cupcake tasting put a little bit of a dent in our diet even if we did split the cupcakes.

Tonight Blair found out he has the opportunity to earn a bit of money working with my dad so tomorrow they are off to South Dakota for the rest of the week. I feel bad that we spent all this money getting him a gym membership and additional food when he will not be here during the week to utilize either, but so is life and at this point money coming in is better than money going out especially since I cannot find a job.

Thursday

Mom texted me this morning saying that she wants to incorporate lifting back into her workouts so instead of lifting this morning she wanted me to lift with her tonight so I did the HIT workout this morning. Since mom hasn't lifted in a couple of weeks I knew she would probably be sore jumping right back into it with Chest Day. 

Friday

I was on my own today for both workouts as mom had stuff to do after work and with complications at the job site Blair wasn't going to be home until 2am. It was leg day for lifting and for some reason it's really been leaving me quite sore. Needless to say there was no evening workout.

Saturday

Between lack of motivation and wedding planning stress I did not make it to the gym. Instead all I did today was work on place cards and table cards. Who would have thought that this would take up the majority of my day but when you're creating all of it to save money you forget that saving money = time consuming. Tonight we all went out to dinner to celebrate mom and dad's anniversary and I did not make the best food choice when I decided to have a beer and split a dessert with Blair. Not looking forward to weighing in tomorrow as I know the lapses in my diet will reflect on the scale.

Sunday

Well this morning I weighed in and I gained a pound so I am back up to 224 pounds. Blair however did really well and lost 3 pounds this week even with not really following the diet for most of the week, so at least someone had a good weigh in. It rained most of the day today which added to my lack of motivation to go to the gym, so today my day was spent tackling the dreaded seating chart. Since we decided to have the place cards already at the tables not only did I have to figure out who is sitting at each table but who everyone is sitting next to at each table. After 5 minutes into this project I completely regretted this decision but as there was no alternative I sucked it up and eventually after much swearing, restarting, and hair pulling the seating chart is done...THANK BABY JESUS!

Day 112-117 Get Fit Challenge...New Workout Buddy

Wednesday

Blair finally flew in today. Since his flight didn't come in till 10:40pm I had to make sure I got through the HIT workout pretty quick so I was able to get to the airport on time. I thought the HIT workout was difficult before but completing the whole thing in under an hour HOLY COW talk about taking it out of you. I did however have to skip on the cardio part of the workout so I could pick Blair up on time.

Thursday

After such a late night on Wednesday Blair and I skipped the gym this morning. Blair has decided to jump on the Get Fit Challenge to try to lose some weight in the month we have left before the wedding. I am not quite sure if he'll be able to do the majority of the workouts because of his shoulder and knee problems. He did try the HIT workout tonight but wasn't able to complete a lot of the exercises because they put too much strain on his shoulder. I am not sure if he will try to substitute the ones he cannot do or just do something completely different instead. 

Friday

Today was leg day for me this morning for lifting. Blair came with me this morning but he did his own thing as he wasn't sure how well his knees would do with the leg workout. The leg workout definitely kicked my ass today and I felt the soreness settle in later that night. I had my first wedding dress alteration fitting this afternoon so we didn't make it to the gym as we ran a couple of errands after. 

Saturday

Today was spent running around doing wedding stuff and making a Costco run to get Blair set up with food as he is starting the diet portion of the Get Fit Challenge on Monday. We prepped all of the food and managed to figure out the puzzle that has become the refrigerator to fit everyone's food in.

Sunday

Blair and I are both ridiculously sore from our workouts on Friday as that two day delay has fully set in today. We decided to take Max for a walk around the lake to help stretch things out and get some cardio in. Monday Blair starts full force with the challenge and I hope it works out for him as I know how difficult the first couple of weeks can be without the added challenge of shoulder and knee problems.

Day 111 Get Fit Challenge...My upper body hurts

Soreness has settled into my shoulders and back today, but I did have a pretty good back workout this morning. With school starting back up again the gym has been pretty dead in the mornings which is so nice.

Nothing is more annoying than a gym filled with annoying high schoolers who spend more time taking up space and talking than actually working out. Now all that needs to change are the awful oldies stations they play that put you to sleep rather than pump you up and upgrading the weightlifting equipment and I will be super duper happy.

I have decided to change up how often I post as the day to day updates are a little lean on content as not much happens so I am going to be posting weekly updates instead starting Monday. Hopefully this will make the blog a little more interesting to read.

Day 110 Get Fit Challenge...crunch time

Friday I go in for fitting and alterations for my wedding dress, so I am really trying to push myself this week and hopefully lose another 3-4 pounds. This morning was chest day for weight lifting and somewhere during the workout I tweaked a muscle in my back/shoulder blade area...LAME. So I made sure I really stretched everything out after my cardio and took a couple of Aleve when I got home. 

Tonight's HIT workout was a bit of a struggle with some of the upper body exercises because I was a bit sore overall from the chest workout in addition to the back/shoulder blade soreness. I thought I would try a new variation for the plank since I am at the 4 minute mark, so I thought I'd try out the reverse plank. The reverse plank exercise isolates and strengthens the gluteus (butt) muscles and hamstrings. Done correctly, it engages both the abs and the lower back muscles. Also it is really hard and it really hurt my elbows to have them locked like that for two minutes. I am thinking since it's two reps of plank to fail I'll do one reverse and one on the bosu ball and gradually work my way up in time. Hopefully that will work out better.

Mom really struggled tonight as I think she is coming down with a cold but she sucked it up and finished the HIT but we had to forgo the cardio for tonight which sucked because I really didn't want to, but what are you going to do downside of carpooling to the gym right? Maybe when my fiance gets back she won't feel the need to have to work out with me all the time and I can get a more consistent evening workout in.

Day 109 Get Fit Challenge...Weigh In and Measurements (month 4)

Well it's been about a month since my last weigh in and measurements. My goal for this month was a loss of 15 pounds and 8 inches so let's get down to the numbers and see if I hit it.

Here are my measurements from July 20th:

Weight: 231 lbs              

Chest: 45 1/2"

Biceps: 14 1/2"

Waist: 38"
Stomach (around the belly button) 43 1/4"

Hips: 45"

Thighs: 27 3/4"

Calves: 18"

These are my measurements from today:

Weight: 224 lbs              

Chest: 44 1/2"

Biceps: 14 1/2"

Waist: 37"
Stomach (around the belly button) 40"

Hips: 44"

Thighs: 26 1/2"

Calves: 17 1/2"

That is a loss of 7 pounds and 8 inches. So I definitely missed my goal for weight loss. With not being able to get to the gym as consistently this month because of  my bachelorette weekend and then my grandpa being in the hospital I can see why I didn't reach my goal of 15 pounds. Inch wise though I did reach my goal so I am pretty happy about that. 

Here are the pictures from July 20th:



Here are the pictures from today:

   

Total so far I have lost 36 pounds and 32 inches in a little over 3 months. There are 41 days until my wedding day and I have my first dress fitting this coming Friday. Since I cannot lose a huge amount of weight once the fittings start my goal for the next month is to really focus on toning up my upper body and not completely stressing out. 

Day 108 Get Fit Challenge...Nauseous

Lately in the mornings I've become quite nauseous by the time I get to the gym. If you have ever tried to workout while feeling like you might throw up at any moment you know it makes things a lot tougher. I don't know if it's from not eating enough in the morning before working out or waiting too long after having the protein shake but whatever it is it is not pleasant. 

After getting through the HIT workout this morning without throwing up mom and I drove to Waterloo to get some more stuff for the wedding taken care of. After running around for most of the day we accomplished quite a bit however we did add a few more diy projects for me to complete before the wedding which will hopefully come together seamlessly for the big day. 

Day 107 Get Fit Challenge...Back to the Gym

So after a week of being away from the gym I was a bit nervous about jumping back in today. Overall it went pretty well. I did better than I thought I would this morning with the lifting and I wasn't really worried about the cardio as I've been keeping up with that. 

This evening mom and I went to the gym to do the HIT workout and I was surprised that I did so well. Mom on the other hand really struggled and though I felt bad for her I felt really proud of myself for bouncing back so well. I even did two 4 minute planks tonight...woohoo! However we did forgo the cardio tonight as I thought mom was going to keel over after we finished the HIT workout. 

Hopefully tomorrow works out better for her and fingers crossed I am not super sore.

Day 106 Get Fit Challenge...ready to get back to the gym

So I've decided that I am not the workout at home type...you know unless my home happened to have an awesome in home gym which sadly it doesn't, but it's something to put on the dream home bucket list. 

I thought since it was so nice out today that I would do the at home HIT workout I found outside on the back deck. Yeah that went ok but since there is no carpet really anywhere inside the house because it's still under construction there really wasn't any other option. It was also pretty interesting to have the dog as my supervisor for my workout. Though he got really excited when he found out the cardio portion of my workout involved taking him for a walk around the lake. 

I guess if I wasn't able to workout at the gym this would be an ok solution though I think I'd have to ramp up the cardio portion as I don't burn nearly enough by walking around the lake regardless of all the hills compared to what I burn on the stepper, elliptical, and rower. I'd also have to figure something out to substitute for weightlifting, but it might not be a bad way to break up the monotony of the gym. 

Until then...Bring on the gym again!

Day 105 Get Fit Challenge...the paddle boat is not good for the knees

So I tried the at home HIT workout this morning and it went pretty well. Cardio this morning was taking Max for a walk around the lake which was quite nice as there was a great breeze and a bit cooler this morning. 

This evening we decided that if we used the paddle boat we'd get a leg workout and cardio in at the same time. We went all the way around the lake which wasn't too bad other than the fact that the peddles in the boat were way too close which put way too much pressure on my knees than I liked and we had to stop a couple of times so I could stretch my legs because they were cramping up. I'm pretty sure that I will need to take some pain meds tomorrow to help cope with that, but we'll see how things go.

Day 104 Get Fit Challenge...at home workout

With the gym being closed until Thursday I've done a bit of research on things I can do at home as a substitute to my gym workouts so far this is what I've come up with:

Instead of 30 seconds though I'll be doing 45 seconds
 as most of my normal HIT exercises are at 45 seconds now

Cardio will be walking around the lake or paddling around it in the paddle boat. We'll see how this goes the next couple of days.

Days 100-103 Get Fit Challenge...All the Drama

The past 4 days have been a little insane and a lot stressful. My grandpa was rushed into the ER Thursday so we drove to Illinois to the hospital to find out what was happening as we were all very worried about him. Come to find out that he had a strangulated hernia and was scheduled for surgery that evening. Long story short everything went well and he was released from the hospital last night...thank God.

This morning I stepped on the scale expecting to have gained at least another 2 pounds, and instead I ended up losing 6 pounds this week...WTF!!!! How in the world did this happen? I only worked out at the gym twice this week? Maybe it was all of the hospital chicken salads I ate? Either way I am happy about the loss.

The gym will be closed until Thursday so I need to get a little creative with my workouts this week. Most of the day today was spent doing yard work and stacking firewood so I am totally counting that for my cardio and lifting because it is 8:30pm and I am exhausted.

Day 99 Get Fit Challenge...rain rain go away

It's been raining here all week and I am feeling a bit waterlogged today. All of the gloomy weather also makes me just want to curl up and nap all day which is awful for motivating myself to go to the gym. However I did get to the gym this morning for lifting and cardio. Chest day was hard today and I felt pretty tired afterwards. Cardio wise I upped the intensity on the stepper from 15 to 18 and upped the ramp on the elliptical machine from 7 to 8 it's just too bad I can't up the intensity on the elliptical as I already have it at it's max.

Right before our HIT workout tonight my stomach got really upset and I was pretty nauseous. This of course made the workout interesting at certain points when I thought I was going to puke but luckily I kept everything inside my body and got through it. 

As I am honing in on 100 days of this diet I am reevaluating my weight loss goals for the rest of the year and hopefully I will come up with something for tomorrow's post.

Days 93-98 Get Fit Challenge...bachelorette weekend and hospitals

I tried to be good during my bachelorette weekend in Charleston but it didn't work out so well and the scale shows my failure as I gained 2 pounds. I started out food wise pretty well with dinner on Friday being grilled yellowtail on top of an eggplant ratatouille with grilled asparagus however the 3 ciders I had back on the yacht probably cancelled that out real fast.  

Breakfast the next day was low fat greek yogurt which broke the no dairy rule, but lunch was a homemade chicken salad chocked full of some great veggies and topped with a bit of salsa but then the vodka tonic and one can of beer along with the strawberries and watermelon threw that right out the window. Dinner wasn't anywhere near healthy as it started out with two beers and consisted of fried green tomatoes, grits and shrimp, buffalo shrimp, grilled caribbean jerk mahi, fried okra and hush puppies. All of it was unbelievably good but I haven't felt that full/miserable in about four months and really could have used a good two hour walk instead of the 20 minute one we had instead. 

Still feeling pretty full from the night before we set out to walk around as much as we could before we flew out which ended up being about 3 hours however my brunch late that afternoon before boarding my first flight was a bloody mary, a  fried green tomato topped with a crab cake and poached egg, about a half cup of home fries and one of the best buttermilk biscuits I have had since we were in Georgia. Although we did have a pretty good walk back to the car I still felt bad about not choosing something more healthy especially after the dinner I had the night before. 

Monday I was back on track food wise however I didn't get to the gym because while we were away my dad had a minor accident with the log splitter and I had to drive him up to Des Moines so he could see a hand surgeon. By the time we got back home it was 2pm and I was so exhausted from getting in so late the night before and getting up so early I couldn't muster up enough energy to get to the gym that night. Also I found out that my grandfather was taken to the ER and ended up having a pretty bad hernia that dropped out of a pocket on his right side pretty close to his intestines and THEY RELEASED HIM FROM THE ER WTF PEOPLE!!! Between all of that I just wasn't in the right state of mind to get to the gym.

Today I had to get up and be out the door by 6am to drive my dad back to Des Moines to have hand surgery. Everything went really well and he should be fine in a couple of weeks so that was good news. However we didn't get back home till about 3:30pm so I couldn't get my morning workout in. Meanwhile my grandpa threw up black blood this morning so he was taken back to the ER where they basically said they couldn't find anything that was bleeding AND SENT HIM HOME AGAIN!!! He as an appointment with a gastronomist tomorrow afternoon as they think he might have a stomach ulcer and then he has an appointment on Thursday with the surgeon for his hernia. Now maybe it's just me because he is my grandpa but I think it's pretty crazy that an 80 year old man came into the ER because he was throwing up black blood and was there yesterday where you found a hernia that will need to be operated on and you don't think that it's necessary to keep him there to monitor him just in case IDK something goes wrong. 

Mom and I ended up going to the gym tonight to get our minds off of everything that has been going on this week. It's funny how you can not do your gym workout for 5 days and it feels like it's been weeks needless to say I think my lifting tomorrow is going to be a struggle. Oh and also the gym is going to be closed this Sunday through next Wednesday for maintenance so I'm going to have to figure out alternative things to do here instead for my lifting and HIT workouts for those 4 days. Oh and I only have 3 more weeks until my wedding dress fitting so much for losing 15 pounds this month I'll be lucky if I get 10.