Monday, Monday Monday

I am far from being Monday's biggest fan, especially when I had a pretty bad Sunday food wise.  Not sure why yesterday was not a good day for me, but it was I snacked......a lot.  Chips, a couple chocolate covered donuts, and to top it off a mini pizza.  Yesterday was probably the hungriest I been in a long LONG time, and I think it's because I ate so much crap.  I still drank a ton of water, which is good, but that's about it.  I didn't work out yesterday but that's because it's my normal day off. 

However, I can't look back to the past.  I've learned not to live in the past only learn from it. Oddly enough I think that came from Lion King, but you know what it's true!  If you keep looking to the past and dwelling on all of your mistakes then you're missing out on your present and not looking to the future of what can be.  So, yesterday I screwed up, but you know what today is a brand new day and I'm going to make today different.

I am on day 5 of my 90 day challenge, and it kind of feels like I'm starting over almost, but that's ok.  I had a good workout this morning, 35 min on the elliptical and about 30 min or so of strength training.  I love my Monday strength training workout, yes I used the word love and workout in the same sentence.  Monday is shoulder and back day.  I am really coming to realize how little muscles I have in my lower back!  I do 4 sets of lower back raises and holy wow can I feel the burn!!  There a couple of guys at the gym this morning trying to show off which is always humorous, especially when they end up having to lower their weights down to the amount that I'm doing.  It took all I had not to bust out in the giggles. 

Day 1 of my 90 day ViChallenge

I started my 90 day challenge today and had my first ViSalus shake this morning.  I must say that it was really pretty good! It didn't have that protein smell, like most do and it didn't have the same after taste that several of the others that I've tried have!  I mixed mine with water and egg whites, but you can do skim milk too. 

I worked out this morning (of course) and did an hour on the elliptical!  I've never gone that long before and I was thinking this morning how awesome that is especially since back in April I couldn't even go 5 minutes!!!  So major NSV today!  I drank a ViSalus Neuro before my workout and that really helped me to wake up because I was having a VERY hard time doing so this morning.  I was afraid it was going to get clumpy when I mixed it like some of the Crystal Light ones I use to, but it didn't!  The only thing I would suggest would be to shake your bottle if you leave it sitting for any amount of time that last little bit tasted a little vitaminy. 

Confession Time!! - I really REALLY wanted a coke this morning, probably worse than I have in a while.  I don't really know why I wanted one SO badly, but it was there and I decided to not act on it and squash that craving like a bug beneath my shoe.  However, I know it's going to be like that small beetle I tried to kill yesterday that just kept on crawling no matter how many times I stepped on it.  That will be my coke craving, it'll just keep rearing its ugly little head.

I really enjoyed my workout this morning and I must say that I believe I'm becoming addicted to it!  I never in a million years thought that I would say that, but I am.  When I'm finished and leaving the gym, I'm thinking alright 4 gazillion other fat cells you're on my list for tomorrow, I'll get you eventually! 

Also, I had my first ever Greek yogurt, it's going to take some getting used to on my part.  Although I didn't throw up or gag so I'm thinking that HAS to be a positive right?!  It was a Yoplait peach wasn't bad, but the texture is something that I will have to get used to.

All in all day one went pretty well, other than the fact that I was hungry in the afternoon.  I tried the whole drinking water when you're hungry thing to make sure you're not thirsty.  Yeah, didn't work, this girl wasn't thirsty, she was HUNGRY!!  Tomorrow WILL be better!

Visalus!!

Tomorrow I'm starting day 1 of my 90 day challenge with Visalus.  I ordered the body transformation kit last week and it FINALLY arrived!!  Actually, it was really pretty quick considering I ordered it late Friday, they don't process on Sat or Sun it mailed out Monday and I have it in my hands today.  It just SEEMED like forever because I'm so anxious to get started!  I'm going to be drinking the shakes twice a day, taking a couple of their supplements, and energy drink mixes.  I'm giving this a shot for 90 days ( I can do anything for 3 months right?) I'll be updating with weekly weight loss on the scale as well as inches lost.  I did the first 15 lbs and 3 3/4" by myself and I'm getting help with the last 90 or whatever I end up loosing.  I will still be working out 6 times a week.  I wanted such a massive body transformation that my trainer suggested I go this route and see what happens. I'm going to be incredibly honest with you guys about what's going on, how the stuff tastes, if I'm hungry etc.  I will probably write throughout the day and just save it as a draft and do one post at the end of every day and that will save on the number of times you have to head over for an update.  I'm VERY excited to start this and I believe I'm going to see great results.

As a side note, I'm not going to be sharing work out or diet information because that is something that Cooper designed for me with my weight loss goals in mind.

See y'all tomorrow!

Workout Wednesday!

So, now that I've gotten ALL that background stuff out of the way, let's get down to business! 

I do cardio every day, except Sunday but that's only because I don't workout on that day, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday I add in strength training and also an ab workout on those days.  Wednesdays are leg days. 

After not eating very well yesterday, can you say carb cravings, I promised myself I would get back on it today.  Of course, I didn't want to get up this morning.  I thought long and hard about going back to my nice warm bed.  But in the end I didn't, because I knew I would be feeling immensely guilty (workout for about 3 weeks solid and you will get this feeling too).  So, I hauled my tired butt to the gym and gave it my all.  I did 40 min on the elliptical and for the last 3 minutes I bumped it up to level 3.  My current fav song to finish out my time on the elliptical is "I'm Sexy and I Know It", find a song like this, the power of music and a rockin beat can work wonders!!!  I finish and my buns are burning and I'm thinking to myself how in the heck am I going to make it through a leg workout?!?  But I knew I had to try, I was pouring sweat, yeah I don't workout pretty, so I made sure to grab 2 wipies for the weight machines and head to the first one.  I do the first one and I think to myself, geez I'm not going to make it, I've got 7 more to go.  I go to the 2 machine and I check my list and this one is a superset meaning I don't take a rest between exercises 2 and 3, so I find the machine for exercise 3 so I won't be hunting for it and get to work.  After I finish this I'm pretty much to the point where I think my pt (personal trainer) is trying to kill me, but I press on.  I get all the way down to the lunges and my legs are like jello, but I miraculously finished.  So, I go to do my ab workout, and the stretching area is completely full!!  I don't have time to wait so I head to the house, and by the time I get there I really don't have time to do it, but I know that if I don't then I'll forget and won't do it later.  So, after laying on some if my daughters nail polish bottles, and realizing I need to vacumm.  I do the workout.  At one point I think I'm fixing to hurl and totally want to quit, but I don't because I want this SO dang bad.

I'm sore today still some from my Monday work out but also from todays and I know that more will set in as the day wears on.  It stinks but I'm going to keep pressing on.

My Personal Trainer.....

.....has helped me to rock my world, and guess what....he doesn't even live in Abilene!  And you know what!  He doesn't have to!  He's given me a "Body Transformation Schedule", which includes a diet plan and an exercise plan.  It's not rocket science to follow it, but you do have to be committed.  You have to be committed to yourself, to lose the weight. 

I was always skeptical of working with a personal trainer, thinking why the heck do I need someone telling me to bust my butt on the treadmill?!  There is so much other value added when you have one, they know when to adjust and tweak things to keep you on the road to success.  And trust me there is nothing like having him tell me that he is proud of me. 

I'm a firm believer that God plants people in your life at the right times when he knows that you are ready and willing to receive the gift.  I didn't go out in search of Cooper (said trainer's name), he found me so to speak.  You see he is also a fabulous musician who came up to the radio station one day to visit with the hubby.  The hubby brought home his CD and of course me being the music hog that I am, I, snatched it up, asked to give it a listen and immediately loved his tunes.  So, me being the social media gal that I am, I friended him on fb and followed him on twitter (@CooperWade) and struck up at conversation.  At this point I didn't know he was a trainer, that came later.  It wasn't too much later that he offered up his services and fitness expertise.  I think that this is no coincidence because the gym I go to offers free personal training, but really all they do is give you a work out, there is no coaching, there is no you did awesome and I need that.

At his suggestion I'm going to start on ViSalus, I should get all of that in the mail today and will start on it tomorrow. So, I'll be sure to let you know how that goes.  Not to make this an advertisement, but I'll list his info below for those that would like it, and if you'd like his number to give him a call and listen to his voice talk to him about a weight loss plan email me at richellecloud@gmail.com and I'll give it to you.

I also think that God knew I needed a weight loss buddy, and he gave me that in Queen J.  We've been friends for quite some time and talk every day pretty much, but a few days ago we realized that we were on the same journey.  We both started at the same exact weight and the only variation is that I want to lose a little bit more than she does (she's taller than I am).  We keep each other encouraged on a daily basis via text, social media, etc.  For all you folks out there trying to tame your weight demon, I would STRONGLY suggested finding a buddy, not only to keep you accountable, but also to encourage you along the way.  WE ALL NEED ENCOURAGEMENT AND POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT!!!!!!  I love being able to tell her I seriously screwed up today and she tells me you know what it's ok, get back on it tomorrow!  My hubby tells me this but it's good to hear it from a non-biased gf as well.

Here's Cooper's info:
Twitter - @CooperWade
Fb - http://www.facebook.com/#!/cooperwade
Web - http://www.cooperwade.bodybyvi.com/

Baby Fat...

...is ALWAYS an easy excuse to weight gain.  "I'm still carrying around the weight from my last pregnancy." How many times have we said that or had someone say that to us?!?  I am certainly guilty of it myself!  But last week when I was trying to evaluate how much weight I was looking to lose (we all need goals), I was trying to figure out where all of the weight I'm carrying around came from.  I think I can say that 40lbs of it is from slowly becoming increasingly inactive as a teenager, but I can relate about 60lbs of it to weight gain from when I was pregnant with Austin.  Yes, it was my first pregnancy and I was young but I think that it could have been avoided.  When I reflect back on all 3 of my pregnancies and what the doctors told me about weight gain and food choices, I have to say that the first was severely lacking.  I had two different doctors, one for Austin (Dr A) and the same for the other two (Dr B).  I can distinctly remember Dr. B conversing with me on both occasions about weight gain and calorie intake etc.  They told me each visit how much weight I had gained so that I would know and when I gained too much he let me know.  However, with Dr. A other than the don't eat too much fish food talk, there wasn't any of that going on.  When they weighed me I had to weigh backwards, so that I couldn't see it and they wouldn't tell me about my weight gain.  I assumed it was fine since they never said anything, and since we didn't have a digital scale at home I didn't really know what I was dealing with.  It wasn't until a few weeks after I had Austin that I realized I had gained a whopping 60 lbs!  Everyone kept telling me don't worry about it, it took 9 months to put it on it'll take 9 months to come off.  Yeah, maybe if you're not sedentary!  I didn't have the time to go to the gym at that point because I had to continue classes and take care of a newborn, the gym was SO not happening. 

Don't get me wrong, I am SO not making excuses for me not getting up and moving my buns, but I do feel that maybe if I had been more informed along the way and told "Hey, sweetie you're gaining a bit too much, slow it down" it would have been beneficial. 

Now, I'm making no more excuses, there is no more I'm too tired (Katie still wakes me up a couple times a night), no more I don't have time (I'm not doing anything at 4:30 in the morning anyway), and no more junk food was the only thing I had to eat in the house (why buy crap when you can buy healthy).  I've taken back the controls on my life. 

Take a Walk with Me...

... on my fitness journey.  I'm not calling this a diet, because to me diets are something that you start and stop.  This is a lifestyle change.  I am taking a journey to find a more fit me, I don't want to just be active, I want to be fit physically.  No, I'm not talking bodybuilder physique, just toned and in great shape.  I've done numerous diets in the past where I would go on a binge of eating what I thought was healthy and drop 30 lbs only to go back into old habits and quickly gain it all back.  I can't really blame it on my kids although my pregnancy with Austin I believe is to be mostly at fault, but I'm kind of pushing it on the doctor (a story for another day). 

This journey started approximately 4 1/2 weeks ago, one night while at home I got a craving for an ice cold Coke SO badly that I broke out in a cold sweat!  I realized right then and there that I needed to change something, and then I reflected further that I was hounding and hounding my kids that they needed to eat better but I wasn't setting any kind of an example!  How on earth could I expect them to change their habits if I wasn't even willing to change them myself!!  The whole mantra of "do what I say not what I do" doesn't work!  You have to be willing to lead by example!  Thus, the very next day I passed up the local convenience store and did not get my usual 44oz Coke.  This was NOT a very good day to quit, because it just happened to coincide with the day that a very good friend of mine was moving back to the metroplex, but I decided to stick it out, because guess what THERE IS NO GOOD TIME TO QUIT!!  You will always be able to find an excuse for something!  Just making that small change I dropped 4lbs in the first week, that to me was monumental, so I decided ok I can do this.  I'm going to totally change my lifestyle, I started up my account with myfitnesspal.com (if you would like to find and friend me search for rcloud) and I started logging in EVERYTHING I ate, even if I just grabbed one cookie, I logged it.  I was really pretty astonished at how much I was eating.  Then I really started to think about what I was eating and tried to stay within my calorie limits and you know what it was easy!  If you cut out junk food and fast food (even Subway), you'd be surprised at how much food you can pass across your lips and still stay within your goals.

It was at that time also that I decided to get my butt moving and go to the gym.  After all I was paying for it and NOT using it, how smart is that ?!?  I may as well flush a $20 down the toilet every month if I'm not going to go to the gym that I'm paying to use.  So, I made a deal with myself, hit the gym at least 3 times a week and I'll go get a pedicure, it's amazing what you can do if you have a little motivation.  If you're going to set a goal like this though it's important to not reward yourself if you don't reach your goal, because honestly what is the motivation if you're going to reward yourself whether you do what you need to or not.  Then next week I said ok if I go 10 times over the next two weeks I'll give myself another pedicure.  Guess what it was also getting easier to get up and go!  I forgot to mention that I also had to get up at 4:30AM to hit the gym, yeup, I am rising before the chickens, and honestly I am not as tired as one might think.  As of now, I get up and go to the gym every morning, except Sundays.  I felt guilty last week when I had to miss because I had a massive ear infection, I even went this past Sunday to make up for missing Friday. 

The only other thing at this point that I'm doing is drinking water TONS and TONS of water! I'm drinking the equivalent of about 11 glasses a day. 

I've had good days and bad days, I even have good hours and bad hours, there are times when I even have to go minute to minute.  I've had to learn that you have to rejoice and be proud of yourself with the NSV's (non-scale victories) as much as you do with the SV's (scale victories).  Right now I'm down 15lbs, and I'm also going to start measuring myself once a week (this is an important thing to do that I wished I had started out doing, because you will amaze yourself at the number of inches you can drop when you haven't seen a drop in the scale).

I'm not here to tell you all about fitness and nutrition, in fact I'm now working with a personal trainer (next blog) to help me along.  I'm also not here to tell you what will work for you, I'm just telling you what worked for me and hope that maybe just maybe I will be able to help motivate you to get moving and re-model yourself.  So, from here on out this blog will be about my struggles and victories on a road to healthier me, because let's face it, it's a little hard to swallow when the lean healthy person sitting on your left tells you it's easy to do.  I guess think of me as the fat girl on your left telling you that you can do it just like I am, you just have to be willing to take the first step. 

4 1/2 weeks in - 15lbs down