No More Playing Around...Time to Reach My Goals!!!

Yoga is done! It was quite obvious that I haven't done that particular workout in a looooooooooong time as I struggled with balance nearly the whole time. :blushing: And I didn't have the strength for those "extra" push-ups that Tony does in between plank and downward dog. But, it's OK. I still burned some calories and got through the workout. I felt my abs working really hard towards the end, so that's good news too. As soon as my body fat goes away, I just might be able to see some abs since they are getting strong. Woo hoo!!!

OMG, Legs & Back really has my whole body shakin' today. I used light weights (like 15 pounds) on the exercises where weight was optional, and I wasn't able to do all 25 reps...but I got to at least 12 so I feel accomplished there. This will make my lean muscle mass grow faster, for sure! I was also better at the pull-ups today, so maybe soon I can do at least a chin-up without assistance. I'll get there! And once again I saw great improvements with Ab Ripper X. That first day was killer, but today was the 3rd time doing it so it did get easier. :bigsmile:

Xmaxine89, does your gym offer PiYo? It's basically yoga and pilates combined into one great workout. It was created by the same person that does Turbo Jam. I want to go to the training for that one and be an instructor...but mainly so I can get the DVD's for my house. I've heard it is a huge calorie burner. I've never actually done pilates, but I bet combines with yoga would just killer.

I hope everyone is having a great day and keeping up with workouts. I am so proud of myself for making it this far without one single cheat on my food! I didn't even have a peanut butter cookie last night at work when there were literally 4 plates full of fresh homemade cookies...and PB cookies are my favorite! I was so good. I think the fact that I made some for Christmas and ate them like a pig last week before starting this program helped out, lol!

I normally don't check my weight once a week, but I decided to try it this time. Of course I probably won't be recording anything "bad" lol so if it is TOM then that weight don't count. :bigsmile:

But I am happy to say that today I weighed in at 143.6 which is 1.6 pounds lower than last week!!! I hope that I can keep up this pace for at least a couple of weeks longer so I can see the new scale count me in at somewhere in the 130s. I also hope the scale at work cooperates because I am in the Biggest Loser contest there and I want it to be accurate so I help my team out.

Have a great Sunday everyone!!!

Today I was planning on making my homemade cheese pizza for lunch and throwing together a Greek salad for dinner. This would have kept me at about 1200 calories for the day. But for some reason, the dough that I made for the crust did not turn out right at all. I followed my recipe exactly how I always do, but it just didn't work out. So I had to go back to the store and see if I could find something pre-made that wasn't horrible. Well, I did the best I could, but it wasn't great. I mean it tasted great, but it was really high calorie! My dough makes a medium size thin crust pizza with slightly more than 250 calories for the whole thing. The lowest calorie one I found had 719 calories in the whole thing. So I decided to not eat the Greek salad. (I am NOT and I have NEVER been or will be one of those people that can stop at just a couple of slices...when I have pizza, it's the whole thing or nothing at all. That's why I love my crust recipe, because I can make a whole medium pizza with just 500 or less calories!) When I logged in the calories and took out my other recipes, I was still over on my goal. So even though this was supposed to be a rest day, I decided to do some cardio to burn some of those calories off. For me, it is always better to throw in some exercise instead of feeling guilty for eating too much on a rest day. Thank goodness for MFP, because without this website, I wouldn't have done that! I wouldn't have even known how over on calories I was.

Hopefully my crust turns out better this coming Sunday when I try it again!

My hormones are messing with my chi, lol.

There are so many symptoms that so many different women experience around TOM, and one of the more annoying ones that I have is that I feel sleepy all the time no matter what. I got the same amount of sleep as I normally do, but I woke up just draggin' anyway. I felt like rolling over and taking a nap. In fact, if I laid down right now, I would fall asleep right now. I guess it prevents me from overeating since I am in bed, but it's crazy!

So during today's cardio workout, I pushed I hard as I could make myself push even though I was kinda sleepy. I think it affected my focus as well as the calorie burn. That's OK, though, cause i know the calorie burn difference wasn't that big anyway. I would just like to squeeze every calorie burned that I can from every workout that I do. :bigsmile:

Jill, normally when something like that would happen to me in the past, I would throw in the towel. In fact, the thought of ordering a Domino's pizza actually ran through my brain. Then I thought that those things are like 1200 calories in half the pizza...so I decided against that. I haven't actually gone out to eat since starting my new program, so I am proud of myself for that. I had been eating out a minimum of 2 times per week, and it sure wasn't anything good for me.

I will post that pizza crust recipe later for you (tomorrow I think). Right now I have to get ready to go to work and leave early since the roads are icy and slushy. I hope I make it... :ohwell:

Well, because I slept in so long, I once again decided to take my Ab Ripper X routine out of the day. I still got in my hour's worth of Legs & Back, though, so it's OK. I will do my best to make up those to ARX days tomorrow after Turbo Kick and then Sunday. I might do a short cardio workout on Sunday first, maybe something like Fat Blaster from Turbo Jam, because I don't like doing abs without something else first. The first workout always gets my abs warmed up and ready to workout.

I am looking forward to Monday's weigh-in because once again I am just doing really great this week. I am really shocked at myself for not having cheated at all (unless you count the 3 measly Gummi Bears that someone at work shared with me 2 nights ago, but that's what, like 10 calories at the most?) and I haven't missed a single workout (I don't even count Ab Ripper X when I enter my exercise for calories burned, so that's OK). Last year I couldn't last half a week, and this year, I have gone almost 2 whole weeks without cheating or falling off the wagon! Such a big accomplishment for me. But I am totally serious about this year reaching my goals and not playing around!!!

I hope you guys are having a great day. I am going to go cook some fish and fix a Greek salad. :flowerforyou:

I know just what you mean about stopping short of your goal because of a long plateau. I have done that many times before, but I refuse to do it again. I am looking at it in a completely different way. I am not eating simply to lose weight, but rather, the foods I put into my body all have a specific purpose and they work together for the ultimate purpose of keeping me healthy from head to toe. Losing weight is just a great thing that happens when you are taking care of your body by eating what's good for you. This is not to say that I will never have anything "bad" ever again, cause that's not true at all. But I am not a slave to my food anymore. I dictate what I am going to eat and when I will eat it, not the other way around...so if one day I want that 6 cheese lasagna and chocolate peanut butter cheesecake, I will have it with out all that horrible regret that I used to get every time I would eat out. It's just not worth it. I will work hard to reach my goals and to keep my body healthy, but that does not mean that from time to time I won't give myself a treat. :bigsmile:

I was able to get through today's workout a lot easier than when I did the exact same workout on Tuesday this week. I still drank a little more than 2 cups of water while working out (I always get bad dry mouth during exercise and don't understand how the instructors in the videos can go the whole time with just a couple little sips!) but I didn't have to take as many breaks "just because." I will probably change up and do a different workout next week for my cardio. I will still be doing Turbo Kick, but I have enough rounds to do a different one each week until I finish P90X. And I like to change it up so I don't get bored, lol.

About the smoking, I think that by coming here and admitting that you are doing it is the first step to stopping. Cause that means that you recognize your own habits and feel that they need to change. That's always a good thing because we all have a lot of habits that we maybe shouldn't do but yet we don't recognize them as "bad" habits. I'm sure you will get through this and meet your goals. It's just a little bump in the road, but you haven't stopped. Just keep moving and doing what you know is good for your body!

Have a great evening everyone. I gotta go back to work again...blah! :flowerforyou:

Tomorrow morning is another weigh-in for me...should I be nervous? I mean, it is TOM...but I have done really well on my nutrition and my exercise. I mean, wow, I've gone 14 days straight without a single cheat (unless you count those 3 gummi bears I mentioned a few days ago) and I've gone 14 days straight exercising each day...so I know that I am on the right track but I don't want to know what TOM has to say about it, though, haha!!! I'll just keep my fingers crossed and if the scale is mean, then I am sure it will go down again next Monday because TOM will be gone by then. :flowerforyou:

OK, so I just did the math...since P90X lasts for 13 weeks, if I continue to lose weight at the same rate each week, then I will be 125.7 pounds when I finish!!! And that is totally awesome since my goal weight is actually 125. :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile:

I almost didn't workout today. I woke up with only 4 hours of sleep and then had so much stuff to get done that I didn't get it all done until around 8:00 in the evening. I was really tired, so I took about a 2 hour nap. When I woke up, I watched Bill Cosby on HBO and then I got my workout in. I ate everything that I had planned to eat and drank plenty of water. And my workout was great because once again I was going up on weights or reps on every exercise. I am still not at the point where I can do any pull-ups unassisted, but I am sure that I will get there soon.

The pizza crust is really easy to make. In one bowl, mix 1 cup of warm water with 1 tsp. of dry active yeast and 1 tbsp. of honey. Set it aside for 5 minutes. In a large bowl, mix 1 cup of whole wheat flour, 1/4 cup all purpose flour, and 1/4 tsp of salt (I use "No Salt" which tastes the same only it is potassium chloride with no sodium in it at all). Then pour the liquid into the flour and mix with a fork until dough forms. Then knead with your hands to form a dough ball and everything is all mixed and blended. Cover the bowl in aluminum foil and set in the sink which has about 4 inches of standing hot water in it. Let that stand for about 45 minutes. Punch the dough ball with your fingers and then cover again letting stand for about 30 minutes. Then you just roll the dough on the counter with a little extra whole wheat flour into the crust shape and size that you like. I normally either cut it into 2 parts and make the equivalent of 2 medium thin crust pizzas or sometimes I use the whole dough ball and make 1 large thick crust pizza. I like to cook it for about 5 minutes on 450 degrees to get it crispy and then add the sauce and toppings and cook again for about 5 more minutes or so.

Each medium thin crust or half of a large (half the recipe) has only 285 calories. Normally when I pre-bake the crust, I add about 1 tbsp. of melted Smart Balance buttery spread and some spices. Also, I normally make just plain ol' cheese pizza and I use an entire package of 2% Kraft shredded mozzarella on 1 entire pizza. My normal serving of that entire medium thin crust pizza normally has between 500-600 calories total, but if you eat less than the whole pizza like most people tend to do, then obviously the calorie count is much lower. I also love my cheese and tend to use more than other people, lol. :flowerforyou:

Have a good night everyone. I am going to shove off to bed now.

After I posted yesterday, I went back to bed and took a nap for a couple of hours. I never nap, but I really needed that. I felt so much better after I woke up, and I had a great workout then. I didn't sleep well last night at all for some reason. It wasn't for lack of being sleepy and tired, that's for sure.

That is pretty much exactly how I was yesterday! I was really tired when I went to bed, but for some reason only got 4 hours of sleep. But I took a nice nap on the couch and then I was able to push out a really great workout. I slept good after that, though. I think it was around 4 am or so when I finally went to bed, and I slept for about 8-9 hours. It was great! :bigsmile: