Hit My Goal - 43lbs Lost! Yaay!

Thanks, again, to everyone for your wonderfully kind words of congratulations!!

Mavis:

I'm honoured to say that this lady is one of my MFP friends. Her success is down to complete belief that she could achieve her goals. She believed in herself and when I get those moments when I think that I can find happiness in the biscuit tin or at MacDonalds I think of my friends, like her and it gets me through the tough times.

I want to look this great, I want to be able to run and dance the way this lady does. Sweetheart you are always there for me to motivate me and to keep me going thank you.

AND WELL DONE ON HITTING GOAL BECAUSE - DAMN! - YOU ARE LOOKING HOT! :flowerforyou:

Thank YOU, Mavis!! You're like...the greatest!!!

I've been getting A LOT of messages and requests to know what I did. Well, I'll share:

First, let me say, cardio alone does not work for me. April 2011 I started jogging. I'd do at least 20 mins a day. Went and got a chocolate lab (to force me to run), in September 2011 and increased my jogging to 45 mins or more a day. A year later, April 2012, I realized I was GAINING!!!

I was on a mission to lose weight quickly and increase my overall conditioning because I went back to dancing in May, which is usually 2-3 hours on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. It's extremely high intensity--ballet, modern, jazz, hip hop, with a lot of African, leaps, jumps and spins (if you've ever seen African dance, then you know the intensity I'm talking about). The first time I did it, in May 2012, I thought I would die. I KNEW I had to get my weight down and my endurance/conditioning up. So, I started praying to God to help me and He led me to different things that has kept the weight falling off. Here's what I do:

1) Intermittent Fasting. I do leangains (www.leangains.com) and ESE (www.eatstopeat.com and www.bradpilon.com). Basically, it's a fasting protocol that manipulates your body to burn fat. How it works is I eat from 12-6 or 1-7 and fast from 6-12. I'll share what I wrote in a post in the Intermittent Fasting group:

"From what I understand from Berkhan with leangains, it's not only about calorie restriction, it's also about using your hormones and body to most efficiently burn fat and for "body recomposition" (I call it redesigning your body). As some fitness guru said: "Leangains is about making your hormones your b****." I think that's true. Berkhan, on his website, goes into time windows when our bodies burn carbs versus fat. If I recall, he states that after eating, carb burning is at it's highest and fat burning is at it's lowest. As the hours tick away, carb burning decreases as carbs are depleted and fat burning increases as fewer carbs are available. About 10-12 hours after that last meal (most of us sleep this time away), the two cross and fat burning is now greater than carb burning. From 12-18/20 hours, fat burning continues to increase, while carb burning is minimal (also because there is no glycogen readily available, if one continues fasting). He says somewhere around 18/20 hours, the body starts burning proteins along with fat at a noticeable rate (before then, protein burn is minimal), thus the reason to go back to eating. But, in that window from 10/12-18/20 hours, it's almost purely fat burning. (This is my summarization/understanding of his articles on his site. I don't promise to be 100% on. Check out www.leangains.com.)

Recently, I was reading some documents on the effects of fasting and how well the body adapts to burning fats if carbs aren't readily available and glycogen is depleted (I was reading up on hitting walls while running). Some of the articles examined how, when doing endurance training in a fasted state and glycogen isn't available/depleted, the mitochondria increase and exhibit highly adaptive qualities by adjusting to burn fat readily and efficiently. However, they posited that it takes about a month for a body to adjust to burning fat really well. Here's a couple of articles:

http://runningtimes.com/Print.aspx?articleID=19425
http://www.powerbar.com/articles/405/train-low-compete-high.aspx

IF may not work for everyone, but it works wonders for me. Also, I like to fast for spiritual reasons, IFing makes that possible without wracking my metabolism.

2) Weights!!! Lifting heavy (for me)! I was always one of those girls who said she didn't like to lift weights because she'd bulk. WRONG!! This is the smallest I've been since I was in the 8th grade.

Mon and Wed:
Legs--squats and goblin squats. 30lbs, now up to 40lbs. 15reps. 3 sets.
Arms/shoulders/back--10lbs each arm. Bicep curl into shoulder press and tricep extensions (while doing goblin squats), bent over rows. 10reps. 3 sets.

Tues and Thurs:
Legs--Lunges and Romanian deadlifts. 30lbs, now up to 40lbs. 15reps. 3 sets.
Arms/shoulders/back--10lbs each arm. Lateral raises and side lateral raises (while doing goblin squats), bent over lateral raises. 10reps. 3 sets.

I don't go superheavy because I need flexibility and agility for dancing.

3) Cardio. When I do weights, I do them as HIIT. Meaning: I'll do 30 seconds hard rope jumping, then one set of movement, like 15reps of squats. Then 30 secs hard rope jumping, then 10 reps of arm weights. 30 secs hard rope jumping, then 15reps goblin squats. I do this until I hit all the reps and sets. I jump rope to keep my heart rate up and burn cals while I'm doing weights.

Every day, I jog 2-5 miles a day. Usually, 2 miles in the am, with the dog, then do HIIT/weights. Then 2 miles in the pm, after work. In the summer, I swam 45 mins -1 1/2 hrs 3 or 4 times a week. Or I do the elliptical. I clock at least 1 1/2 hr workout every day and then about 3-4 hrs Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. I work out hard to get my conditioning in the place that I don't pass out dancing (no falling off the stage!!!).

Also, I just LOVE to work out, so it's hard to stop once I start. I LOVE the endorphin high! I do most of my workouts in the morning, fasted. I've never bonked. When I dance on Saturday and Sunday mornings, I dance in a fasted state, with just drinking whey protein. I have incredible energy and can just keep on going. My conditioning has increased several times over.

4) Macros: Protein: 40%, Carbs: 30% and Fats: 30%. I try to eat at least 1g of protein for every lb of lean body mass (100-120g) and keep my carbs down to 50g, unless I crave carbs (then I go with my body and scarf them up. I figure it knows what it needs). I don't starve myself. Ummm, like recently, we had an office party and I ate cake, sugary croissants, blueberry cobbler, a sub, and a bunch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. I don't really worry about my calories, whether they're high or low. If I eat a bunch of junk, the next day I'll do better. If I eat a bunch of chicken, salmon and salads for a few days, I'll be sure to eat a bunch of carbs and junk food. I drink a lot of whey protein--Nectar Sweets Whey by Syntrax is ultra-yummy!!!

My calories bounce around. One day my calories may be 2200, the next 700, the next 1350, then 1275, then 800. I've always been an erratic eater and I don't like to spend a lot of time with food prep--food's just food. So, I try to eat in a way that I can sustain for the rest of my life without having to pay much attention to my food. I don't want to become one of those people who obsesses on her food, calories, etc.

5) Water, water, water!!! I drink at least 15 glasses of water a day.

So, I've lost 43lbs and have gone from a size 16 to a size 8 pant and size 6 top.