I got up early this morning to start bodyweight training. There are only a handful of exercises, but you start out doing 3 sets of 4 reps and slowly progress to 3 sets of 8 reps. When that feels fairly easy, you progress to doing 3 sets of 4 reps of the next harder variation of the same exercise. It went quickly today; only 15 minutes, but I'm excited to see where this leads me. I'm only a tiny bit sore right now, and I suspect that I'm be more so tomorrow and fairly consistently as I continue the program. I also got a 2.5 mile walk in this evening.

I also figured out how to duplicate a salad dressing that I really love from Applebee's. We used to order food from there during staff meetings, and I'd get this spinach salad with hot (warm, not spicy) Asian bacon dressing. So yummy! Anyway, I made my salad with mixed baby greens, half of an avocado diced, 1TBL Asian dressing, an over easy egg, and the 2tsp of bacon grease that I cooked the egg in. I'm seriously in heaven and will be eating this salad every night for awhile!

Thank you!

I ended up missing my walk today, after my landlord gave me fairly short notice to come over and take care of some water damage. I cleaned out our entire back entry room, so he'd be able to get to the wall. Some got moved to the living room and some things got carried to the basement, plus I caught up on a few load of laundry which also has me up and down the basement stairs. I've decided to let that be my exercise for today, since I walk pretty much every day. I'm sore from yesterday's bodyweight session, and I ended up with a headache and nausea this afternoon. Anyway, I've been thinking about goals and noticed that I really only have daily goals of meeting calorie and macro requirements and walking, and my big goals of getting to onederland, then 175, then maybe 150 depending on how I feel at 175. I see many people, both here and in my Biggest Loser Challenge group, posting weekly goals. After 5 consistent weeks of focusing quite well on daily goals, I'm ready to look a little furthur out. I realize it's Tuesday, but it's never too late to set goals.

This week, I would like to begin training myself to get up early on my bodyweight training days. I already did yesterday, so I've got tomorrow and Friday to go. Once I can consistently get up before the rest of the house and get that workout in, I'll reevaluate and decide if I want to modify the goal or consider it met.

I also want to explore ways to get more fat into my "liquid" breakfasts. I usually do a protein shake with spicy vegetable juice and/or coconut milk yogurt. I usually have a morning snack, but today, I was starving before snack time. This is new, and I can only suspect that it could be because I've added strength training. In which case, I better get used to adding more fats in the morning. I had a cup of coffee with coconut oil with breakfast today, but obviously even that didn't help. Time to do some research and experimenting.

kettiecat wrote: »

I put heavy whipping cream in my morning coffee.

I wish I could, but I'm very sensitive to dairy proteins. When I have coconut milk, I use that though... The stuff in the can meant for cooking, not from the containers meant for drinking.

I just realized how funny it looks that I'm talking about going to the gym to use the machines and also posting principles of my strength training saying that I don't need a gym and fancy machines. For me, gym = cardio during crummy weather...other than, hopefully, the TRX class.

Jeff has been a gym rat for around 15 years with a few breaks here and there. I actually had to drag him there this week! We haven't had gym memberships for about 4 months, and once that much time passes it gets easier and easier to make excuses to put off going back. I'm glad we upgraded to the hospital's wellness center though. The staff is nice...from what I can tell after only 2 visits. Our previous gym gave us free membership for 2 years because we're both veterans, but there was no staff. Just a key code to an old, school gymnasium with some free weights, a few weight machines and a handful of threadmills. The atmosphere wasn't great either because it was in an underground level of the old school with horrible lighting. At the hospital, one whole wall is floor to ceiling windows on the second floor. I guess the one pitfall so far is that we don't have 24 hour access. Not that we usually need that option, but sometimes it just doesn't work to get there before closing time. They closed at 6 tonight and it's around 0*F and windy outside, so I missed my cardio today. I plan to go to the gym tomorrow morning since they will close at 1, I believe. If I can't make it there, I'll do a video workout at home.

I did get up and do my strength training this morning, so I made it all 3 days. Next week may be more challenging. This is my week with my 2 youngest kids home. I have to get up earlier with them for school than I do when they are with their dad. I haven't decided yet if I want to still try for getting that workout in before the rest of the house is awake, or if I will modify the goal to do the workout immediately after I get them to school. Will think on that one over the weekend.

I joined a group on here where you can track and share your walk/run/bike mileage in relation to walking through middle earth with Bilbo or Frodo. There's a website that has it all laid out so you know that if you go X number of miles you'd be at a certain location from the stories. So cool! I love it.

My biggest loser challenge group has weigh in on Sundays, and I'm feeling a little bummed about my weight not really dropping. In fact, it's gone up a few pounds since I reached that 30 pound loss milestone. I'm retaining water because of ovulating and because of muscles repairing themselves, but even considering that, the scale is not being very nice to me the whole past week. I'll do measurements again on Sunday too, so maybe there will be progress there. I did notice the other day that my calves have shrunk. I haven't been measuring specifically, but I put on a pair of leg warmers that I used to have to squeeze my legs into and now they slide right on. I might start measuring there too.

I am seriously being tested on this journey. I'm too the point of being pissed off about having GAINED about 8 pounds in 10 days even though I'm doing ALL off the same things I've been doing. Grr. I'm not giving up, but man this sucks. I'm at a loss as far as figuring out any kind of cause for the major gain. No sodium overload. No carb overload. No dehydration. No hormonal events. No binge eating. No new meds or med adjustments. No sore muscles in recovery. I was over my calories once in 10 days. I just don't understand. I have a medical scale on wood flooring that's connected to cellular modem computer transmitting to the local VA hospital. I'd think that they'd notice the trend and question it, but maybe I just need to call and ask if it ever needs to be recalibrated. They're closed today, so I'll plan on calling tomorrow.

I made it to the gym today and restarted C25K. It's been several months, so I figured I'd start back at the beginning. I was able to run an average speed of 4.7mph. I've got some work to do to get back to running at about 5.8mph. When I was done on the treadmill, I went over to the rowing machines and did 4 minutes of tabata sprints. It's the first time I've tried it, but I really liked it and I think I'll plan on ending all of my gym workouts with that. I still need to get my bodyweight training in for the day. I'm wishing I would have gotten it done early this morning, but 6am was just not calling my name. I will make it happen tonight though, and try harder to get up really early on Wednesday. Will be continuing to work on that goal this week as well as aiming for HIIT/Tabata training daily.

I've had a great couple of days. Exercising daily has been going well. Took Thursday off from a formal workout and danced around the house to loud music while I did some extra cleaning. I've typically only been eating back a small portion of my exercise calories unless I feel like I really need to eat something more, but often I find that I'm not going hungry by not eating back those calories. Last night, Jeff and I drove about an hour and a half to go have a birthday celebration with one of my best friends who was born on the exact same day as me. We went to a small Mexican restaurant and then to a movie. I ALWAYS get popcorn at the theatre, so I logged that first and used the rest of my calories and macros to plan what I could eat. Anything with dairy, beans, or rice as a main ingredient was out. We ended up getting a big fajita platter with 4 meats and the typical veggies. I was really conservative with my portions of fajita beef, chicken, and shrimp. I also had the little lettuce/pico de gallo/guacamole salad that sits next to the beans and rice, a side of guacamole, and 2 small fajita tortillas. Of course we also had to have birthday drinks, but I opted for a lime margarita instead of strawberry or mango and got the smallest size. The wait staff came out to sing to us and brought tequilla shots too. Whew! We had a good time, and I only went over my calories by 40.

Today, Jeff and I went to get pedicures and new running shoes for me. We went to Applebee's, so that was another experience of picking from a menu to fit my calories AND macros. Ended up getting Bourbon Street Chicken & Shrimp with steamed veggies in place of the roasted potatoes. I could actually only eat half of the meal. When we ordered, it turned out that we got items from the 2 for $20 menu so got a free appetizer...that's a slippery slope. Asian Sweet & Spicy boneless chicken wings. I did the research first and decided that I was only allowed 1 piece. Yep, just 1. I did it. I wanted more, but really decided ahead of time that the consequences were just not worth it. I also got a free Red Apple Sangria as their birthday special. That would have put me over my calories and carbs, but when they brought it out it was much larger than I had expected....and it was terribly sweet. I sipped on it through our meal, and left half of it on the table when we left.

My final look at my nutrients after dinner showed that I was significantly low on protein and fat....and calories too, for that matter. I hadn't eaten my pre-exercise amount yet. I joked with Jeff that my evening snack would have to be 2 slices of bacon....except I wasn't joking. Such a wierd concept sometimes, to eat more fat to lose fat...but it's obviously working. Anyway, had my bacon and kombucha for my evening snack and finished my day with 214 calories to spare.

The scale has been going down consistently for a few days now, and if it continues at the current rate, I could be back at that low point in about a week...whhhheeeeen I'll have another hormonal water retention event....so maybe that low point will be in a week and a half or so.