Days 3, 4, 5....

Saturday, Day 3...Today started out kinda rough. I was still feeling kinda crampy and fatigued, not to mention that I ate like total CRAP yesterday. And then this morning Eben went out and got a bunch of donuts...now I love donuts (he does too...) but I can't eat donuts and stay looking good, which he can. Curse my metabolism. So I forced myself to go to the gym in the late afternoon...REALLY didn't want to and felt really ill-prepared to do a workout but I went anyway. I did some elliptical, then tried to run and those donuts made my stomach ache like nobody's business. So I walked it off and cycled for the rest of the time. Then came home and did day three, level one. Less sore than yesterday, but it was still a struggle. So though it was kind of pathetic all around, I did it and I'm glad I pushed myself through it!

Sunday, Day 4....Today resolved to eat better, which I did before my workout, at least. I did about an hour of Pilates on my own, and then did day 4 level one of the 30-Day Shred. Better than yesterday! Feeling good! Had a healthy lunch and then proceeded to ruin it with cocktails, chips, and frozen yogurt goodness at Yogurtland. Oh well. Better luck next time.

Monday, Day 5....Ran 2 miles on the trail and did day 5...and ate better today :)

Continuing the challenge with a few bumps in the road...

Thursday, Day Two....today I got up at five to drive Eben to the base, came home to eat breakfast and wake up before my Pilates class at 8:30.....but I quickly discovered there was NO COFFEE in the house. I woke up sooo tired.....usually on the early mornings where I have to take him to work so I can have the car, I'm really groggy at first but "wake up" by the time I get home from the trip. But today I really wanted to crawl back into bed and the fact that there was NO COFFEE in the house didn't help at all! But I sucked it up and went to class and told myself I could stop at the Coffee Bean by the studio afterward. And....class was awesome! I have had some really amazing gains lately and today I was feeling some great flexibility and movement in my lower back which has always been tight and hard to articulate due to some curvature in my spine. But the Pilates is definitely helping my back issues, so cool!

After Pilates I did my second day of the 30-Day Shred....and it was a LOT more difficult than it was yesterday! Mostly in the strength part, because it definitely worked a part in my shoulder/bicep area and made it reeeal sore. So to do the same exercises again was a bit tough. But I made it through!

Friday....should have been day three.....but I had the worst, nauseating and painful cramps ever. I got up early, took Eben to the base and went straight to the studio to do my weekly cleaning with the intention of hitting the gym to do some cardio on the way home. But, on the way home from the studio I started feeling sick and crampy so I just went home and skipped the gym. As the day went on I felt worse. So I decided to take a day off...plus my knee was hurting again, and it's been a pretty intense week so I didn't want to push it. We'll see how tomorrow goes....

30-Day Shred Challenge! Day one...not so bad...

So today I started Day one, Level one of the 30-Day Shred video. Well, let's back up...before I started I went outside to the trail behind my house and ran two miles. And before that I warmed up with about 20 minutes of yoga to get the blood flowing. So by the time I popped the DVD in I was, well, sweaty. It's getting HOT here, next time I'm gonna have to run earlier in the morning! (For those of you in MN, you might be thinking "well of course it's HOT, it's the end of JUNE!!" But summer here just started to heat up, like a week ago. It's been gray and 60 degrees for the past two months!! I guess that's typical though).

Level one was......intense but not awful. I think if I had started this at the degree of fitness I was like a year ago, it probably would have been awful. But my cardio endurance, core stability, and overall strength has gotten a lot better in the past 8 months. The workout itself is pretty basic moves but it does move fast and gives you virtually no break in 20 minutes, but like she says, if you want to work out for only 20 minutes a day and expect to see results, you have to make it count. There are two "models" doing the exercises along with Jillian, one who modifies them to make them easier and one who modifies them to make them harder. Now, the one who modifies them the easy way clearly didn't get those abs by doing that, so she is a liar and I didn't want to cheat by following her. And the one who modifies harder is just frightening, so I chose not to look at her either. Though I suppose to progress within level one I'll have to follow her veiny, hulk-thighed lead sooner or later. The one thing I noticed was that the ab intervals were easy as pie for me. Yay Pilates! Maybe if I work harder in my cardio you'll actually be able to, you know, see those abs someday!! They are real strong under there, just hiding for now. ;)

One thing I noticed....a few hours after eating lunch today my tummy was having that ravenous hunger feeling that I used to get when I would have a good weight/running session, eat, and then go to work...I swear an hour after eating a HUGE (but healthy) meal I would feel hungrier than before I ate. That's the metabolism fire, and I haven't felt it for awhile, but I felt it again today! Awesome! Good to have you back, burny, rumbly sensation.

Tomorrow: Day two and Pilates class!

I'm back! With more fitness adventures to come...

HI! It's been awhile....let's see, my last post was way back in JANUARY. So about five months ago. Oh my. Well to try to catch you up, here's all that happened in those five months. Take a deep breath....

Eben graduated from Marine Corps Bootcamp!!

Then we got married!! (if you or anyone you know ever needs to plan and execute a wedding in five days, I'm your girl.)

Then I moved to California! Eben left for CA three days after our wedding, and about six weeks later I followed. Three days of driving my little Mitsubishi and whatever it could carry across the USA and I arrived in Carlsbad, CA...about 30 miles from where Eben was based at Camp Pendleton. While I was getting settled in, Eben was finishing the last half of his School of Infantry Training. During the week we had no contact, but I was able to bring him home (almost) every Friday night through Sunday afternoon. Then about a month later he graduated SOI and for about a month after that we lived in limbo while he was in Recon Country...it's a lot to explain but I'll sum it up by saying he didn't know what his eventual job was going to be, where he would be doing said job, or when we (or maybe just he) would be moving in order to start said job. And he couldn't leave base. And he didn't know when he would have free time so I would randomly drive the half-hour to base to hang out with him in the car for like an hour.

When I first moved to California, I had no idea how long we'd be out here and basically no plan for how my new life would take shape. I was kinda starting from scratch, a stranger in a strange land. After boot camp, his trajectory was for him to finish SOI, wait to get picked up in a Recon training group, go to Recon school, finish Recon training (a process that could have taken anywhere from 3 to 6+ months) and then get based......somewhere. So until we had a better idea of what to expect I kinda bid my time because there was a good possibility we would be moving again soon or that things would change dramatically. All this uncertainty makes it hard to find a job. Not to mention that people around here don't take kindly to Marine wives and certainly don't want to hire them (and after some of the stories I've heard I know why). So, no job, can't see the husband...so what did I do? I ran. A lot. So much that my old knee injury was beginning to act up but I pushed through it anyway.

Then..... I had to go to the hospital for a burst ovarian cyst. So I was completely laid up for about a week, recovering for about 3 weeks total. That brought my ENTIRE life to a grinding halt. Really, looking back, working out was ALL I HAD at that point. I was stressed out beyond belief trying to figure out the logistics of my new life from scratch, on completely uncertain terms, without Eben around, and running was the only thing that kept me sane. So when that was taken away, I felt like the last tiny puff of wind had been taken out of my sails, so to speak.

Being out here in California with no job, no friends, no family, no husband...I have never felt so alone and so confused in my entire life. Why on earth was I here and how in the heck was I supposed to figure my life out when my whole world was constantly changing? The minute we would figure things out, his status or school would change, he'd get moved around and we'd have to figure things out all over again. Forget about trying to plan for the future when you don't know what today or even tomorrow is going to look like. And lesson #1 about the military...they tell you nothing. You just kinda have to strap in and ride the rollercoaster. You figure things out as you go, and most of the time not until after they already happened. My husband signed up for this and they tell him where to go and when to be there and what to do when he gets there. But for me, as a military wife....it's not so black and white. So in my experience, being a military wife is about the most alienating and confusing thing you can sign up for. If you can imagine being on a small boat in rough seas...you're clinging onto that boat, things are rocky but as long as you can feel the boat in your grasp you are getting by... then imagine getting tossed out of the boat, into the churning waves, you can't see, can't breathe, are being pushed around and under and tumbling around like a sock in a washing machine. Forget the boat, it's gone. You'd die for a breath, or even to be able to open your eyes and SEE SOMETHING.

Now I'm not complaining here...just telling it like it is. I am so, so blessed to have a wonderful husband and yes, I did agree to this way back in April 2009 when he enlisted, knowing full well it was going to be hard. I have never once, in the past year, been hit with something and thought to myself, "My golly this is so hard, and here I thought being a military wife was going to be a bed of roses!" And I must say, my gift for always imagining the worst did prepare me pretty well for military life. If there's anyone I would do it for, it's him, and if there's anyone who could make all this much sweeter, it's him too :) He's just pretty darn great :)

Fast forward to the present....Eben opted out of Recon (huge sigh of relief) and was able to get stationed with a regular infantry unit here at Camp Pendleton. This provides us a lot more security...Eben isn't getting stationed in Japan (which he would have been in Recon, and I wouldn't have been able to go with him), we are staying here in California for the forseeable future, he gets to come home every night, he knows his deployment and leave schedule for the next year and a half...many things have settled down.

So after a long recovery where I couldn't do anything physical, I slowly began working out again but my knee was still hindering me. I couldn't really run or do Yoga, so I sought out a Pilates studio here in town and am now working there really part time but get to take classes for free! I have been going there for about a month and the classes and instructor are AMAZING and super hard core. My Pilates practice has grown leaps and bounds and every single class I have this fundamental "aha!" moment that changes the way I do a move from that moment on. It's quite amazing. Also, the past few weeks I have been slowly building up my strength and endurance and I have been able to run, pain free, for the past week or so!!

The upside of all of this is that by some miracle, in my five months of stress, general life-turbulence, physical calamities, etc...I've managed to keep my weight at or below my 20 pound loss! So the changes I put into place 8 months ago definitely stuck and my body is now comfortable at maintaining this new weight. But.....that's the thing. It's comfortable here. So even though I'm still pretty good about working out and eating well, I'm not seeing any additional loss. So it's time to kick things up a notch because I still have progress to make. I still have jiggles where I would love to have no jiggles.

Another reason to get rid of those jiggles.....I am working towards a goal I have had since I did my first set of "hundreds"...becoming a Pilates instructor! Just waiting for the financial part to come together. This school aint cheap. Anyone know any wealthy benefactors??? Free Pilates for life! Hahahaha :)

So, my goal here is to give my workout routine a kick in the pants! Now that I'm "back" I want to continue on a higher level than before....because these last 5-10 pounds are the pesky ones.

So, here's my plan:

I'm going to restart my blogging practice...I think this really helped me last time to keep on track and stay focused. Not to mention the accountability part. Plus, I have done some crazy things in the name of fitness lately that could be fun to write/read about (hula-hoop dancing class, anyone?) and I definitely want to keep pushing myself to try new things as I am working the plan. I think the key to success is to keep your fitness program new and fun by trying new things, so my plan will probably keep changing. Plus, your body is lazy and contrary and greedy about its fat. You need to constantly trick it into giving it up by distracting it with fun new challenges!

For my workout, I'm going to continue to do Pilates at the studio 2-3 times a week (hour long classes). I'm going to also run outside or do some other form of pure cardio 3-4 times per week (treadmill, elliptical, bike, stair climber...lately I've been getting into doing 10 minute circuits on one machine and then moving on to a different one). I'm also going to throw in Jillian Michaels' 30-day Shred challenge. I picked up the DVD real cheap at Target before I had my health setback, and I think now is the perfect time to start it....plus I've heard good things about it and I'm curious to see the kind of results it will yield. So it's kinda like an experiment. Basically it uses circuit training...3 intervals of (3 mins strength, 2 min cardio, 1 min abs). There are three levels you progress through over the 30 days and it leaves the progression up to you. I'm going to start at the beginning because it's a very good place to start.

Even though it's called 30 Day Shred and I am going to try my darndest to keep it to 30 days, sometimes life gets in the way or I need a day of rest (also I have a vacation coming up in about a week). So I'm going to do the prescribed 20-min workout pretty much everyday unless something crazy is happening. I also am going to try to take pictures every week to chart the progress....we'll see if this happens, it's not that I'm shy just that I'm lazy.

Well, here goes! Stay tuned.....mission: GET SHREDDED.

Week Twelve, days four and five....just plugging away....time go by FASTER!!

Day Four, Thursday....this morning I went to my weekly Pilates class at the gym, which was a great workout as usual :) Then I did my day three running stuff, and by the end of my workout was feeling pretty spent but pretty great!! I didn't have too much planned for the day, didn't have to work, so I took it easy and ran some errands (there is lots of little stuff to get done to prepare for this trip!! Like more than a normal vacation.) which included a stop by Eben's parents' house to pick up some little kid pics of him (way too adorable!) so I could scan them and send them off for a slideshow that one of the other recruits' sister is putting together for a meet and greet thing on Thursday night. So far I have gotten all the travel stuff I need, gotten all my misc. appointments/tasks done, gotten all of his clothes and stuff from his parents so I can pack his stuff in my suitcase and have his winter clothes here for our week in MN (he went out there with literally the clothes on his back, so I need to bring him some!!) as well as get all my own stuff together, clean the house for when we come back, make sure his xmas presents are all ready, make any appointments/arrangements for our week here, etc, etc, etc. Not to mention that practically NONE of my clothes fit and I don't really have the time or money to buy a new wardrobe before Wednesday. Yikes!! So there will have to be some strategic dressing going on! Anyway, enough with all this preparation...I'm just ready to GO already!! As of today he is officially a Marine and has successfully completed the Crucible....The pride, relief, joy, love I feel for him is just indescribable! So, from now till Thursday all we have to do is wait. My patience has officially run out.

Day Five, Friday......today I was scheduled to have the day off, but I decided to pick up a lunch shift for a little extra cash (and really I don't know what to do with myself and needed the distraction. Sad, huh? :) ANYTHING to make the time go by faster!!! Unfortunately it wasn't a very lucrative day, but it's more cash in my pocket than I had this morning, so that's a plus. When I got home I was feeling pretty tired for some reason, but wanted to do a good pilates and resistance workout. I did my pilates, but realized I hadn't eaten much yet and figured that's why I was feeling droopy....couldn't work out more on an empty tummy so I ate some dinner but still felt pretty wiped for the rest of the night. I decided to take a little rest and just hit it hard tomorrow...I am a little sore from extra hard workouts the last three days in a row, so it is nice to have a light day to break it up. Early to bed tonight!!

I also just found this website which is awesome for tracking what you eat in a day, and it's free!! You put in your age, height, weight, level of activity outside any fitness regimen, and how much weight you would like to lose in a week, and it calculates how many calories you should be eating in a day. Then you can go in and enter everything you eat and it has all the nutritional info right there and adds it into your total and shows you how much you have used for the day and how many calories you have left. It also lets you input your exercises, what you did and for how long, and estimates the number of calories you burned and subtracts it from you daily total. Pretty cool!! It is really helping me be extra conscious about what I eat and I've actually been much less prone to little "cheats" this week because I know I have to enter it in and it will show me exactly how it impacts my goal/total calories for the day!! On top of the workouts, it allows me to enter in my work hours for the day and see how many calories I've burned at work when I'm serving for 4 or 8 hours....and dang, it's a lot! On days I work 8+ hour shifts I'm burning over a thousand calories! With that on top of my eating and workouts, it's no wonder I'm losing weight!

Week TWELVE (!!), days one through three.....

Day One, Monday.....wow I can't believe it's the last week already!! So as discussed in the results post, my bloating had me feeling a little icky today. I worked a double, and it was SO BUSY because of MLK day and people having the day off, apparently they all came out to the mall and the movies and needed some Big Bowl to refuel! :) So it was good because I made a good chunk of money, especially considering it was only a Monday which I usually don't expect to make much. BONUS! Nice to make a little extra with my vacation just around the corner! But, it was not so nice in that I worked eleven hours straight with only a tiny half-hour break to shovel some dinner in :( Luckily I brought lots of snacks to keep me going throughout the day. So I was exhausted and drained at the end of the day, but really not feeling too ragged physically, considering. I know that getting into better shape has really strengthened my body to the point where these long shifts don't affect my feet/knees/legs as much as they used to! For a while the all the working out + work was really pushing me physically, but I think now I've reached the tipping point where I can handle it because I'm in much better condition. So cool!!

Day Two, Tuesday....today I worked lunch at the restaurant, and as expected after the madness of yesterday, it was SLOOOOW. Like my section didn't even fill up during the "rush" (if you could call it that) so I had three tables and was cut! Which was actually ok. I had packed my gym bag in the am and went straight there after work and did not only my day one running stuff but also did a good resistance workout as well with the machines and weights! I think I am going to start doubling up on workouts like this whenever possible, especially now that my endurance is up and I can handle all that on days where I work as well. Feeling good and strong! Also tonight I started to feel back-to-normal and more like 130 again :) I will "officially" weigh myself tomorrow morning to check in on the progress and make sure I'm not actually gaining!

Day Three, Thursday....today I had my last session with my trainer!! So sad :( but I know that we will probably continue in some form or other after my vacation (and I will continue to take her pilates class). She worked me harder than ever which was great...and then at the end of the session she weighed me to see how much I have lost since our first session and weigh-in. Our first session was on Wednesday November 18, and I weighed in at 147 on their scale (which is a little different from the one I'm using obviously, and when I weigh in at home I don't have clothes on and do it first thing in the am so it really is my lowest possible weight, ha ha). So, nine weeks and nine training sessions later, their scale read 131! So in those nine weeks alone I lost 16 pounds! Sweet :) She was as excited as I was and congratulated me on a job well done, and commended me on my discipline and commitment to the plan.

After my training I did 15 minutes on the elliptical with high resistance and high speed, and then did the sideways running routine/fast sprint intervals for 15 minutes for a total of 30 minutes of high intensity cardio!

Oh, and I did weigh myself on my scale this morning, and it read 128.5 so I was correct, I am not gaining :) I'm going to try my best to be between 126-128 by next Wednesday when I leave for San Diego!! Totally within reach :) Going to work in a few extra workouts here and there, and try to be really extra good with my eating for the next seven days!

Week Eleven results!!!

So my goal for today was 128....I got on the scale and I was 131. Eek! But, I'm also still incredibly bloated so I know that it is throwing things off a little. I know I didn't really gain any weight last week, so I'm just going to keep weighing myself for the next couple days to make sure that was really what was going on!! Just bad timing for the weigh-in, I think. Gotta love being a girl. :( Stay tuned!! For week twelve (the last week!!!!) I'm going to really hit it hard and burn off as many of those remaining pesky pounds as I can! Because after that I'm going to be in San Diego, probably not working out, and then back home in MN with Eben for a week and we are going to be doing a LOT of eating, cuddling, and generally hedonistic activities. I would love to still get in a few workouts during that week, but I'm certainly not going to beat myself up if I don't!!! I only get to see him for ten days out of six months, so I'm going to take full advantage of it :)

Workout tally for week Eleven:

Cardio: 4

Weights: 2

Pilates/Yoga: 2