Sorry I've been MIA! Lots going on right now!!! I had to back log a bit for the Star challenge, I didn't have service (or a phone charger) camping this weekend! I believe I got a gold though!! Maybe a silver? I forget... Let's say silver to be safe!

Everyone should watch tv tonight... my sister's episode of Wheel of Fortune will be on tonight!!! Woohoo!!! For those of you who end up watching it, her name is Kristen and she stands all the way to the right (furthest from Pat Sayjack)

I wish I could catch up with everyone now, but I have to run! I will say, welcome to all the new people!! And I miss you all! Have a great Monday!!

Monday - Check In (how are you doing? Had any successes or struggles this week-end?)

Hey all. I am going pretty good. We had a nice relaxing yet busy weekend. I ended up leaving early Friday as my daughter had a fever, so we didn't get that nice long walk in. We did do a shorter walk. Saturday we also did the usual walking: coffee shop and farmers market, and also walked to and around a festival. Sunday was more walking to jazz in the park and I did 30 minutes of yoga. So I was active for sure! My eating was okay. Not enough protein or vegetables, but what else is new?

Quick check in with those responses I see:

Shander, I will totally look for you sister! We usually have WOF on in the background. Fun! Oh, and spekaing of TV....who has time for 8 hours?! I feel guilty for watching an average of maybe 1.5-2 hours most weeknights. I feel a little better now. :blushing:

Fluffy, "eat like a normal person".....love it!

Shanber, so glad you got your running mojo back and are feeling good and pain free.

Beeps, glad you had a nice trip. Sounds like you stayed nice and active which is a good balance for extra food.

That's all I see on this page. But a little I remember reading about workouts. First off, I am not a fan of videos. I know a lot of people love them, but I seem to dread them for some reason. I think they're a great way to work out, I just don't like them. I have not done that many recently. I did 30 day shred for 30 days straight, only missing one day. I came to dread it. I did 6 week 6 pack about 3x a week for 6 weeks. I got great results and may consider doing it again, but still didn't ever look forward to it. I have yoga DVDs I don't mind, but don't have any I LOVE. I guess I prefer to do my own thing.

Kelly, for a quick effective workout, I would recomend some interval training. I think I have shared a sample workout a trainer friend in real life of mine gave me to do. It is killer and you can get it done quickly. I have a HIIT app (free) on my phone that you can program for rest and work cycles. I haven't done it in a long time, but I think I would do 30 seconds work and 30 second rest. You can do however many rounds you want, but I would shoot for 5 rounds for a 25 minute workout:
1. Jump squats
2. Push ups
3. Alternating power lunges
4. Burpees
5. Mountain climbers
REPEAT
Go all out for 30 seconds because then you get to rest. Your hear rate will rise and fall (hence the interval training), but will consistently rise throughout the sets. You will be sore. I would burn around 220-250 calories in 25 minutes, so a good burn too. Good luck!

I have a gym bag packed for a lunch workout. Not sure if I'm running outsdie (no stroller yay!) or lifting. Weather is supposed to top out in high 70s low 80s this week. Love it! Have a great day!

Congrats, Amy, on the platinum star!

Better - i am not a dvd-workout person, either....somewhere i think i have a yoga dvd....

shander - i didn't watch, so fill me in on how your sister did, please!

Hi everybody else.

My weight popped back up....thanks a lot san diego....so, for sure i will be at LEAST five pounds too many for the wedding event this weekend.

Grrrrrrrrr...

Anyway, still have 2014 work to do. Blech.

I will lift everyday mon-thurs this week. Maybe a short walk on friday before we hop on a plane to get to nephew's wedding.

Good morning Ladies!

It is Monday and I am not feeling the office job LOL. I learned last night I can never be an alcoholic! I had 3 glasses of wine and I feel horrible. I had a sour stomach all night and woke up this morning feeling toxic and my kidneys hurt. The weekend was a semi bust. Saturday was my long run and so I ate a bit more than usual on that day and Sunday was going OK until we got busy in the evening and ended up ordering Chinese and drinking wine as we worked LOL. I need to find a new water belt too for my runs I think...after the run I was spotting b/c it sits right over my IUD and I think the bouncing irritated it.

For the star challenge:
Goal 12,000...actual 12,976....exercise 2,220

Not too bad I guess...at least it is in the right direction, just slow.

This week It will be the standard goals I think. I am flying out Sat night again for VA...I really hate those long flights (16 hrs). I will at least get all my runs in including Saturday....just will have to be careful while traveling. I have the red-eye so hopefully that will make me cranky enough not to eat..

I am going for epic on smoothies this week b/c I have to clean out the fridge!

Smoothies 5x (gasp!)
Salad 2X
Long run 3X
Sprints 2X
Pushups 3X
Strength 1X

Calories 12,000

Hi All - very busy Monday!
Monday: Check in - I had a great weekend! Success was getting the long run in on Sunday and feeling great (but exhausted yesterday). I made it to the gym on Saturday too and got in 30 mins of cardio and 30 mins of lifting but not really what I wanted to do as I was time constrained.
My only real challenge was my macros were way off on Friday and Saturday but much better on Sunday.

Amy - congrats on the Platinum! Looks like you did really well over the weekend The last festival I went to we ate nothing and only drank water (you could bring an empty water bottle and fill it for free). The lines were so lung for the food trucks it wasn't worth it and you would miss the bands and they weren't close where you could hear them. We ended up leaving and getting something to eat instead.
Shander - I will watch for your sister tonight!
Beeps - I am pretty sure that bit of extra weight will come off quickly this week with normal eating and workouts!
Ashley - that workout looks to be killer but I may just have to try it to see if I can get through it once :laugh:
Chel - I have never drank much but I do like to have a glass or two of wine... I have been cutting back though and limiting it to the weekends now as it was becoming too much of a habit and it can be expensive! Also I have a pack I like from iFitness(Fitletic). I like that it doesn't bounce much at all and they have lots of different configurations. I use it primarily for long runs and races.

Will post Star results this evening!

Thanks for the star chart, shanaber....i can improve my performance, for sure.

For the next weeks, I am challenging myself (again!) to cease all ingestion of food after supper. That, alone, likely cuts 300-500 cals, per day, and I want to exercise my willpower to just DO that!

I am at the gym!

Ok! Back again.

Boy oh boy am I glad to be home. Southern CA is going through a major heatwave which made the majority of the trip semi miserable. I did manage to get some good beach time in on Friday... there are so many cute adorable pregnant ladies down there rocking two pieces, it made me a little jealous and also wishing I had brought mine! Saturday through Sunday were just too hot. We were in San Diego both days... and actually stayed inside a majority of Saturday watching football with AC. Sunday we went to the Seahawks/Chargers game and I literally almost melted. The announcers said it was almost 115 on the field. Their stadium is so awful and barely any of it had shade. We ended up leaving at half time... I felt bad, but just couldn't handle it. I'm so glad to be back in Seattle where it's back to the mid-70's today. PHEW. Shanaber, hope you are staying cool down there today! I hope you ladies all had a good weekend!

Good job on the star challenge all!

Go Beeps go! Eating after dinner has been my downfall too.

Shanaber - Yay for the running! So glad you are able to get back into it.

Better- Good for you for being so active!

Chel - that flight sounds like absolute hell. Good luck. Sorry to hear about the upset tum.

Amy - That dinner sounds amazing!

That's all I can see/remember for now.

Tuesday goals: I'm hoping to get in 4-5 workouts this week. I managed to get 40 minutes of swimming yesterday in at the hotel, I am headed to yoga tonight, Wed or Thurs (or both) I'll head to the gym for some cardio/light weights and then I'll try and swim again on Friday. I'm also going to walk with a bunch of other preggo's on Sunday so this week should be pretty good on the activity front. I also want to try and just be better with eating. I feel better when I eat better!

Amy - what brings you to New Z in February?!?!? One of my very good gf's moved there about 1 year ago and LOVES it!

chelneal - I need a LOW calorie day....however, I am suffering from headaches, right now, when I am not eating - which is ULTRA-weird for me....but, it keeps me ingesting calories - most of which I DON'T WANT.

ramalem!! omg, I thought San Diego was PERFECT HEAT!! Perfectly AWESOME! No, I wasn't pregnant, but man-oh-man, their climate is just SUBLIME as far as I am concerned!

Chloe - happy 3 anniversary....fun times!

Got in a group strength class today - which was ULTRA challenging for me, lol! There I am, all big and blustery with the weights....but, this instructor, whom I ADORE, was MEGA-reps and so...yep, I had to drop the weight for half the class, lol. My muscles are built for POWER, not ENDURANCE, and it REALLY showed today! I think I will keep this nasty class in my repertoire for awhile. M/W/F will be Venus, but the in-between Tu/Th, it feels GOOD to try some other weight-oriented stuff.

My butt, right now, is SOOOOOOOOOOO SORE, it isn't even funny. BOOM!

Morning ladies - quick check-in to say hi! I have a ton of work to catch up on and a Dr. Appt in an hour, but I'll be back later to check-in with everyone. Shanaber, California was too damn hot! :laugh:

Ramalem - it is still hot!! I got up at 5:30 this morning to run before it got too hot and by 8:30 it was almost 90! It hit 103 this afternoon and is still sitting right there! The only good news is that the pacific hurricane is pushing some moisture our way so we may get some rain which would be awesome. As long as there is no lightening that could set off more fires!

I am also new:
1) drink more water
2) walk more everyday
3) start eating my homemade foods again (less processed)
4) lift 3X/week on break at work (20+minutes)

my schedule is brutal so it is very hard to be consistant outside work hours. (single mom without any help)
my daughter has soccer 5X-6X/week (i hope to get in a walk on the track while she is doing her practices). we have Navy Cadets Thursdays and Sundays 4hrs each day/evening plus the occational extra weekend event with the corp.work everyday and school everyday. we rarely see the house for more than 1hr at a time and usually right at 4PM and not home till after 8PM.
looking for a bit of support and a place to vent on occation.

Check in:
1) drinking lots more water
2) still working on this ut I did bike to work yesterday
3) have not had much if any "junk" aside from late night snack so far
4) did 3 lifting days last week

I did a Phase 3 Venus workout....those suckers are SO long!

Then i did an abs class.

Because....it is "Feastival" tonight....and i wanted some extra food-baby room under my dress.

Also, got my hair done, today, and cut bangs in. Hope they make me look younger!

.....roll....

...Thread!

Now, post your star results and your 2-week self-challenges here!