Sexy Sexy

Yesterday was a bit of a relaxed diet day. Not awful, but relaxed. I had been to the gym for 5 straight days before that, so I really needed a break anyways.

I still had my breakfast bar for breakfast. Then we had that big meeting with "breakfast". Who ever decided that bagels and pastries constitute breakfast. I grabbed an OJ and a cup of coffee instead. Good thing I ate my breakfast bar before getting there. I do hate that I wasted 140 calories on OJ though.

I did not bring my snack to work like I have been trying to do, so I did succumb to the pressure of pastries sitting in the kitchen area. Too bad. Blew it right before lunch. I should have just eaten lunch, but no. I had this delightful blueberry thing. I'm sure it was awful, but I decided to just be careful the rest of the day. I got a salad from au bon pan. I really love that place. I just don't like how much dressing they put on my salad. I will ask for half dressing next time. They have good salads there, but they also have a lot of healthy snack items - along with a lot of non-healthy snacks. I got this cute little bag of baby carrots for my afternoon snack.

For dinner, I met some friends at Royal Oak Brewery. I think I drank a few pints. My friend and I shared two appetizers. One was Thai Chicken Skewers. I think these were pretty healthy, but we didn't really love them. We also got Chicken Cheese Quesadillas. All in all, I don't think it was too bad of a dinner. Could have been much worse.

Now for the fun part...

After dinner, we were walking to Noir Leather when we saw this little boutique shop with dresses hanging up outside. I've really been wanting to diversify my closet lately, but I've never thought I could pull off a dress nicely. My friends saw this cute little dress that they wanted me to try on. I was like, no no no... let's just keep walking. They insisted, so I went with it. It totally fit me, but I'm very pale and it would have looked a lot better on someone tan. The owner of the shop went and got me a different dress though. It was this beautiful flowy chocolate thing with a tie around the neck thing. It was so cute and sexy - even on me. ME! It needs to be shortened, but seriously this thing looked so good with my coloring. I totally bought it, and I so canNOT wait to wear it. Of course, I will post a pic when I do.

That's about it. I think I might be heading down to Indiana for a party/camping thing tonight. I'll weigh in sometime tomorrow for the Challenge. I can't wait to lose 10 pounds next month - even though I'm not confident that I can. That's a lot to lose at this point in the game. I will at least lose some pounds and improve my mile time. Go team!

Full Body Pic (well...missing some parts)

I made my kids take pictures of me tonight after my workout...

Ok, I just have to say it. I knew I was feeling good, but I did not know that I was looking this good. I'm totally getting there. Watch out, Erin. haha.





















*Edit*

I just found a full body shot from last summer (the week before I joined the gym). I'm the second from the left. Btw...this was the puke in the mouth picture.

Comment from yesterday's blog

Ok, I really should have waited to post that blog last night. I really truly fell asleep in the middle of writing it. I just noticed that I said I had clicking at my new joint. For the record, I have not grown a new joint. This is an existing body part that has started clicking when I run. It's on the back side of my leg (is that still called the knee back there?). Does anyone know what might be causing this clicking and if there's anything I can do to fix it? It doesn't happen when I'm on the elliptical.

Even better the second time...

I went to the gym tonight and ran into the trainer that took my measurements the other day. I demanded to have my hip fat measured again. He said no problem and took me over to the measuring station. I was standing there just waiting for him to say something like...Oops or uh yeah, it was a bit off. Instead he said...take a look. I looked down and saw 8mm. Yay! So, according to his measurements, I am officially at a 21.9% body fat percentage (not to be confused with BMI...thanks, Billy). He told me again that I just need to lose 2 lbs to be where I need to be. He also got on me about only doing cardio and needing to be on the other side of the gym and blah blah blah. He said I can eat 1645 calories a day and still lose a pound a week - add in exercise and I can eat more or lose more. Yeah yeah...we all know the drill by now.

That was one cool thing. The other cool thing was that I was in the locker room and saw these fabulous black thighs (the girl was bent over getting something from her locker). I thought - wow, she has thighs just like April (my trainer). Well, looks like April grew her hair out got extensions. Funny that I recognized her by her thighs though. I think I like them, because April is about my height and I think I could attain that build if I put enought effort into it. rambling here...

I never did tell you guys about our fallout. Remember when I missed the last day of demf? I had some serious shit going on and I missed my personal training session. Then she called to tell me that Saturday's session was moved to Sunday @ noon. Well, I showed up at like 12:10, and I couldn't find her. I thought that maybe they were working out outside or something. Anyways, probably the next day, I listened to the voicemail that she had left me about 6 days earlier, and it said we were meeting at 11:00. (She had called and left a vm, but I had just called her back before listening to the message...I do this a lot.) Anyways...I completely forgot to call her to let her know I was going to be in Chicago for the Tuesday night session and I forgot to call to ask when we were meeting over the weekend. Basically, I thought I'd lost my last paid session. She had said something like that in the voicemail (if you no show again, i'll have to charge you...) I understand this.

Then I got another call the next Tuesday night that said...look I warned you that I'd have to charge you. you haven't been here and you haven't called, so i have to charge you for your remaining two sessions. By the way, I'm moving to Indiana in July, so have a nice life (or something along that line). Maybe we can work something out for your last two sessions if you give me a call...

I didn't think I had two sessions left, but I felt horrid that I'd blown her off for several weeks, so I called and left a voicemail. I basically apologized and said I would like to work something out if possible. If not, I'd understand.

Well, I never heard back from her and I hadn't seen her until tonight. She accused me of never getting back to her. I know for a fact I did, but it's beside the point now. I am going up there tomorrow night for my last session. I will miss that girl.

She said my shoes were way cute (my new running shoes). I told her the exciting news about my assessments - and then I pointed at my thigh to show her the muscle. Here's the payoff for listening to this dreadfully long and boring story. Ok, so it's probably not payoff to you all, but it is to me. She said (with big eyes)...you're looking smaller. So, here's the deal. We all know that I haven't lost any weight in a long time, but she recognized that I'm smaller. I swear that the running is really really paying off big time. I don't care what anyone says...I'm gaining muscle mass and losing fat. I can see it and I can feel it. BTW...it's been just about a month since the last time she saw me.

I was looking at the mirrors today while I was on the elliptical, and I was mesmerized by the shape of my thighs. Ok, ok...i'll stop...don't puke.

I really think that my home workout last night made me a little tired to really push myself tonight on the machines. Plus, I haven't been getting nearly as much sleep as I should, and I haven't been drinking enough water. The guy trainer really wants me to start eating healthy snacks a couple times a day. I might actually give this a shot - even if it's just an apple or something.

I chose to use the hill option on the treadmill tonight. Felt good that I set the level at 15 (out of 20). I kept my speed at about 5.0 for about 15 minutes. I then wanted to just run a straight mile, but that clicking at my new joint returned right away. Does anyone know what this is? It's like at the bottom of the hamstring. Anyways, I took myself over to the elliptical to finish my workout. I am trying to mix it up, because I am getting a little bored with the cardio stuff. Plus, each minute seems to take a long time to get through lately. Maybe it's my music. Need to get another good set.

Ok, I'm so tired that I actually fell asleep writing this...

Good night!

Something new for me...

I took a break from the gym tonight. I was just going to sit here and relax, but then I was looking at workouts online and got motivated to workout while watching tv. Great move! This is definitely a good supplement to going to the gym.

I first did a "bikini tune-up" from Women's Health. This is not to say that I will be wearing a bikini (this year), but it's a pretty good session for someone like me that hasn't done much in the way of strength training. Then I wanted to keep going, so I moved onto "the guide for your backside". More than anything, I want a perfectly luscious bottom, so this was fun. It's so cool to see and feel my muscles when doing these sets. I swear I even notice my thigh and ham muscles when I'm just walking now. I attribute this to the running and the elliptical of course.

That's about it. I had my Fiber One bar for breakfast along with a Starbucks low-fat double shot and creme. 70 calories. I had my Kashi Southwest Chicken for lunch. Dinner wasn't so pristine, but I think I'm still fine. I didn't get any protein in though - just a serving of mac&chz and a piece of cornbread.

Whatever, I feel good about my workout. Good night!

Woot!

Ok, bad news and EXCELLENT news!

I went to the gym today and finally got assessed again. This was my first assessment since last November, but the numbers I'm going to post are from last August.

Bad news first: My weigh-in was 149. This is much higher than what I see on my scale - even if I calculate in the 5 lb differential that I've been doing since day 1. I don't even really care - because of the EXCELLENT news:

Ok, this might get a little clinical, but please read and celebrate with me.

***modified***

can't seem to get a table in here, so go here:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcjgjtgd_3fgjbtd


OK, so the table might be a little ghetto, but you get the point. One thing I haven't said yet is that my BMI is supposedly at 21.9% now. Last August it was 31.7%. According to Lifetime Fitness, I only have 2 pounds to lose to get to where they'd like to see me. I know that I can still lose more to be within range, but it's still comforting to know that they don't consider me a fat-ass anymore. For the record, I'm really not sure about the 8 mm number above. I'm sure I'll have to go in and revise these numbers once I confirm that it should have been 18 mm. We'll see.

Other than that, my eating was much better today. At the gym, I did intervals again. 7.0, 7.5, and 8.0 sets with resting in between...pretty much the same deal as yesterday. I'm really sore today...some of it is a good sore, some is a little bit of a worrisome sore. I stopped when I felt that. I am going to take tomorrow off from the gym to be safe, but I'll be doing upper body strength training here at home.

Goodbye, Venti Soy Chai

I have a feeling that my soy chai's have been sabotaging my weight loss. 350 calories really adds up. The one thing that makes them not so bad is that they probably provide about 2 dairy servings. I think that's about the same amount of calories as 2 servings of milk?

Anyways...no more of them during the month of July. In fact, I have to vow to bring my lunch to work every day too. I really need to get back to only going out to lunch once per week. It's killing me.

I went to the gym this morning, and I had the lower arm sweat thing going again. In fact, I was pretty much drenched. I'm starting to think it's due to ovulation. It's only happened to me twice - today and about a month ago. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I was even having a hard time getting my HR up to where I like it. The other difference was the time of day that I was working out. I usually go there in the evening, but today I went in the morning. This was the same situation as the last lower arm sweat day.

On a positive note...my stomach was looking a little flatter. I've heard that running helps women get rid of belly fat. My legs are looking more toned. It's a good day.

Finally, today I did interval training. Beck's speeds have given me inspiration. Brace yourselves...

*Stealing Beck's format here*

Cardio: Treadmill
warmup:
2 mins at 3.5 MPH 2% incline
1 min at 4.0 MPH 2% incline
1 min at 5.0 MPH 2% incline
1 min at 5.5 MPH 2% incline
interval:
90 sec at 6.5 MPH 2% incline, 60 sec rest; 3 sets.
90 sec at 7.0 MPH, 60 sec rest; 3 sets.
60 sec at 7.5 MPH, 60 sec rest; 3 sets.
30 sec at 8.0 MPH, 60 sec rest; 3 sets. (+30 sec burst of 8.5 MPH at the end of the final 8.0 MPH)

While I felt that I was working hard, I know that I could have probably gone faster. Next time I'm starting at 7.5 MPH working up to 8.5 MPH.

This whole thing took about 30 minutes or so, so I hopped on over to the elliptical for 20 minutes. This was where the lower arm sweat happened.

Now, I have to go clean the house. Have a great rest of the weekend.