Trying once again.

So, apparently I know how to lose 30 lbs fast. Then regain every stinking bit of it back. *sigh* I've tried to restart many times and have recorded the first positive stance of it here and each have failed.

Today I'm looking for help.

Calorie King's 5 ways to beat a binge.

Maybe that'll help the late night oreo and m&m trend around here.

Drinking more water today. Thinking about signing up for Slim For Life, even though I already know what they'll tell me to do. maybe paying for something will help? But I'm stretched on finances lately and there's a chance Jeff may be having job issues. Don't really know. Going to work out later today, drink a lot of water and try to avoid the big pitfalls.

I found my sport! Big thighs are an advantage!

Can you believe it? I found a sport that I don't mind playing! I'm more of the "Hey, you go ahead, I'll just sit in the shade and knit" kind of an athlete. seriously.

Well, it's just the boys and me, my daughter is in NM with her dad and Jeff's got his boys so it's my boyfriend, his two boys and my one boy. That makes for more outdoorsy stuff. We went yesterday after dinner to the tennis courts up the hill. We loaded up all the cheapo rackets and my very very old one (I think I last played 18 years ago) and had a BLAST! We had a warm-up where it was all 5 of us on the court at once and was only moderate bedlam. Then they wanted an uber-tournament. The line-up started with Joey & Ben (the two youngest). Winner played David (10 yrs). Winner played ME and then the winner played Jeff. I asked why Jeff was the last to play and his boys said "because Dad is the CHAMPION MAN!" Like there was no doubt. I said, what about me? Oh no. He was the champion MAN. I said ok. Then beat THEM ALL! mwaaa ha ha haaaaa.

Actually, it was Joey's (my boy) 2nd time actually holding a racket. He played GREAT and beat both Ben and David. David has some issues with anger, so it was a challenge, but he did really good. David didn't lose it once he sat down. I beat my son, poor boy. Then Jeff and I had a 3 game match that had both of us running and slamming all over the court. It was AWESOME! I had so much fun, didn't even realize I was sweating and working and today my legs are all slightly sore, arms got a workout too. I sucked down at least 3 bottles of water which is always good. Jeff told me I had "venus thighs". He didn't mean like Venus de Milo as in beautiful thighs, but strong powerful thighs. I'm good with that. Normally he refers to them as thunder thighs. He's very complimentary to me except for those big things.

I felt like a superhero. Seriously. I've got to find a way to play more. I think I loved it because I can do 6 or 7 running steps at a time no worries. A whole 1/4 of a mile kicks my living butt, but 6 or 7 steps, oh yeah.

That counted as my exercise for the day. Going to go to the gym tomorrow for lower body workout of lots of lunges, squats and leg presses and those ugly things where you lay on your tummy on the machine and curl your feet towards your butt and the back of your thighs scream. Should be a blast. Tennis anyone?

Workout 1

Here's what I did at the gym. Took about 45 minutes.

Walking lunges holding 10 lb weights in each hand, 4 sets of 20 steps

Standing Dumbbell curl
Standing Dumbbell lateral raise
Standing shoulder press
(three done in a row with each weight then rest, then all three new weight, rest, 3 for 3rd weight)
12 reps with 10 lb DBs
10 reps with 12 lb DBs
8 reps with 15 lb DBs

Standing barbell calf raise
12 reps with 30 lb
12 reps with 30 lb
12 reps with 40 lb

Triceps Extension (standing with one DB and 2 hands over head and going back with elbows held in tight against head)
10 reps with 12 lb
6 reps with 12 lb
6 reps with 12 lb

Dumbbell decline press
12 reps with 15 lb DBs
10 reps with 20 lb DBs
6 reps with 22.5 DBs

Seated Dumbbell Row
10 reps with 25 lb DBs
8 reps with 30 lb DBs

Ab work:
Lean back on pad, knees bent and feet and lower back butt on floor, leaning back, switch large ball from right to left, twisting. 3 sets of 25

OK, so the chubb is back

Not all of it, just 20 lbs of it. damn. Well, at first I maintained but kept active. Ate well and had one item a day that was a little off target. Then less activity. Then all foods were good. Then a 56 oz superbag of m&ms was my best friend late late at night while I was sitting up late knitting. damn damn damn.

It's not a total lost cause, I'm still mostly slim up top, no back fat showing up yet. Just all my pants and shorts are SCREAMING tight. *sigh*

Started eating better about a week ago. Started walking 30 minutes every day 3 days ago. Heading back to the gym. This time with no trainer man. This time with no great amount of money to win in a bet. It's just me versus the thighs. Wish me luck.

Here's some good motivational sites to visit and get workout ideas from.
Shape Magazine I print out some of their workout cards.
Body For Life this one has great workout videos to show how to do the different exercises. It's also got a printable food & exercise logs, but I do better just writing my stuff down in a notebook.

I really believe using weights instead of machines (or at least mostly free weights instead of machines) makes my body work harder. Being a mostly lazy woman, I'm all for getting the most burn out of my sweat. If I work my stomach by holding my body upright and lifting arm weights that's all good. Once you get good at doing whatever weight lifting thing you're doing you can stand on one foot through your reps and it makes a HUGE difference on your whole core tummy thing. Then you can alternate feet for each set of reps. It really used to make me sweat back when I worked out with Trainer Man. I wish I could again, he was so very positive and I worked so hard and felt accountable, but I just can't afford it.

I'm heading to the gym this afternoon and will post my workouts here. I'm not sure if anyone really cares, it's just so if this plan works, I'd like to have a record of exactly what I did to get there.

You know what really sucks? I waited to get chubby and NOW found out my 20 year high school reunion is in 2 weeks. Why couldn't it have been when I was a skinny minny? *sigh* again.

Off to sweat...

Easy move for sexy arms and boosting the girls

Leaning pushups. I am STILL not able to do more than one normal push-up. Push-up exercises work all the good muscles we need with summer coming up in ONE MOVE. So, what's a girl to do? LEANING PUSH-UPS! Depending on your upper body strength, you can do different levels. Start at whatever level works for you and the different angles actually work different levels of muscles so it's good to do them all.

While hanging out in the kitchen waiting for your coffee to brew or your water to boil for tea, do some kitchen counter pushups. Place both hands firmly on the counter edge, about shoulder width apart, stand at an angle trying to keep your body in a straight line (no sticking the butt out to make it easier). Do 3 reps of 10 each. As you get good at this, do them on the bathroom counter and eventually work down to on your knees on the ground and pushup-ing.

I love this move, because you can always do a quick set of 10 when you're just hanging around. EASY PEASY and it really helps tone your arms, biceps, triceps (the granny flap of skin on the bottom of your arms, you know the part of your arms that keeps waving long after the rest of your arm is no longer moving) AND strengthens the chest (boosting cleavage never hurts) and back. GOOD FOR YOU!

Made it back on the system of mostly eating healthy. Did my water drinking thing, but am only at 3 bottles of water per day when at my peak I was sucking down about 6-8 20 oz. bottles. Eating more little meals and snacks more often, I'm baby stepping my way back to getting ready for tank tops of summer!

Have a good weekend! Take a walk if it's nice or go for a bike ride. I'm heading off to the lake to help my honey with manual labor chores. I'm planning on fitting in some sitting by the lake knitting time too, but I imagine I'll be working my tail off first.

It's official, I'm becoming a slug.

So much for motivational here's how you do it blogging today. I've become lazy. Not a problem if it's once in a while. Nope, every day. Actually I've not just become lazy, I've somehow morphed from totally workout and health goddess to sometime-goddess and sometime-normal (what I'd most like to be) right on past not caring and being lazy to ACTIVELY trying to fuxx up my fitness. I'm not sure where this happened, but two days ago I realized I ate FIVE candy bars in one day. FIVE. not even little ones, no, full sized and one was even a king-sized reese's peanut butter cups so it should count as six total if I were being honest with myself. You know, you have to WORK at trying that hard to not be healthy. cripes almighty. I'm still looking ok, still have nice arms, but now those pretty lines on my stomach are much shorter and end in this pudge that I can't blame on monthly bloating any longer. I also was clapping at my son's little 1st grade musical last night and FELT MY BACK WIGGLING. oh no. I'm not going back to back fat. Not gonna happen. Got on a scale this morning, saw I've gained 12 pounds in 4 weeks. nice.

I've got a history of getting a bit manic and totally nuts about things I throw myself into. I'm going to try REALLY hard to not be psychotic here. wish me luck. Baby steps.

Walked the kids to school this morning. Forgot to bring in a permission slip, so walked home and then walked to school again instead of getting into my truck and driving the half-block that I've been driving for the last month twice a day. I'm not able to be a workout woman of leisure any longer. Trainer Man had to get a real job so only does training in the evenings. I just can't seem to fit it in, so I told him to holler in the fall and we'll do a once a week maintain/teaching kind of a workout thing then. I just can't let the fact that I'm not working out with someone any longer be my excuse to not exercise at all. I've also got a heavy work load coming up and in another week, I'll have Jeff's 2 boys in the house all day and then mine are out of school in 2 weeks so there'll be FOUR of them running around. That cuts down on the "me time" so I'll have to get creative. I'm going to try to set up some kind of a schedule so I can get back into the habit of exercising each day again.

My goal for the next week: walk to & from school each morning and evening. Find one more half-hour in the day to walk somewhere, even if it's just around the neighborhood. For those of you wanting to find more time in your lives, back when I had a real job I would take 15 minute "sunshine breaks" twice a day. Since I didn't smoke I didn't have an excuse to get outside and spent entirely too much time sitting at my desk breathing recycled air. Those in power (hourly administrative assistants with REALLY bad attitudes and also were the smokers who were taking breaks) would get huffy if I tried to take my little breaks, so I just got to where I didn't say SHIT about it and just walked out the door and then came back in 15 min's. No one official ever complained so I just kept it up. I had one tattletail after me complaining to the owners of the company but that never went anywhere. I'd just say that I pee quickly so that time I saved I chose to breathe outside for a bit. Give the whole "energizing my brain" speech or something, but it never came up.

Next week I'll try to add in 3 days of 45 min's of weights. I'll have to drag the kids along to the gym but they can hang in the kids' area and whine if they want to. tough.

Other goal is to not buy any more damn candy. The house is officially empty of chocolate, all easter bunnies have been beheaded and eaten and all candy bars are gone. I'm not walking into any more gas stations since that's where the urges seem to hit me. I'll pay at the pump. I'll also try to start toting my damn water bottles around with me again.

Trying to climb back up on the wagon

Yup, fell HARD off the wagon. Into the mud, ok into the chocolate. I really have a lazy gene. And a rationalization gene. And they're mighty powerful. My one meal a week to eat whatever I wanted became one day a week, then, well, most days and then EVERY DAY for 2 weeks. I still look uber skinny to myself. Clothes still fit, but they're becoming a bit snug in the tummy and the THIGHS. OH LORDY LORDY I worked too freaking hard to get those thighs to go DOWN to have them plump back up again. I still had work to go, no time to be going the wrong way.

Let's just say I still have emotional eating issues. And bored eating issues. and frustration eating issues. And that laziness? Yup, it's been 2 weeks since I've done any serious exercising. damn. Let's just say it started with biting the heads off 3 chocolate bunnies and then well you can't just leave the little headless bodies around as evidence, now, can you? *sigh*

I'm not wanting to become all crazy about the weight, so my scale's been put into the back of the closet. It came out today and was 8 pounds heavier. I know that's just a number, but still it got me pissed off enough to make me get back on track. I gave myself one last hurrah last night at the knit night and called it my "leftover from the migraine cravings" but today I'm back.

Today I woke up 15 minutes earlier to get my act together. Drank a nice bottle of water. It didn't go down as fast as it used to, you have to burn calories to get your body really craving it. So, water, check. Got kids going, fed, got myself one cup of whole grain cheerios with skim milk. Man it tasted bland. Guess I've got to retrain the taste buds along with retrain the attitude. dammit. WALKED the kids to school instead of driving them up the hill. Yes, I've been driving to & from school and yes it is less than one half block away. dammit. Enjoyed the walk, maybe it was all in my head, but I felt clearer coming home to start my day. That little bit of fresh air and muscles moving got me awake enough to start the day. Got myself a hot green tea and another bottle of water to take upstairs to the office.

Gonna take my ass to the gym today and do a very moderate workout so I don't break this body. My plan is to do some arms and upper body weight lifting and then some lunges and sit in the sauna and sweat out some of the toxins that are having a party inside me. Plan #2 is to walk 30 minutes and catch up on some podcasts before walking to the school to get the kids. Gotta food journal again. wish me luck.