Healthy for the Holidays Challenge - 9/06 - 11/22

SW: 213
W1: 213

I really need to get my butt in gear. It appears the only way to get the scale to move is to work it off. Just watching what I eat is not working at all.

Hope everyone has a great day.

SW (9/6/11): 186.6
Week 1 (9/13/11): 183.6
GW (11/22/11): 171

Whoo hoo! Three pound loss! I don't know how I did it because I took two days off from exercising, but I guess with all the stress I'm going through it was what my body needed. Did pretty good with my water. I didn't hit 10 glasses everyday, but I did always get at least 8 and started carrying a bottle of water to work.

9/6 SW: 147.2
9/13: 145.8

-1.4

Does anyone else feel like they are continuously gaining/losing the same 5lbs? thats so me right now.

HI all!!
I am posting this weeks challenge...I wanted to post it last night, sorry...but we were out of state all day for a funeral...

Exercise:
Try to get in at least 20 minutes of strength training a day this week. Strength training refers to exercise that requires your muscles to exert a force against some form of resistance, such as free weights. Performing strength training exercises 2-3 x a week for 20 minutes yields terrific results. Some misconceptions associated with weight training are that women would produce bulging muscles and/or they would seriously injure themselves lifting weights. It is very difficult for a woman to produce large muscles due to the fact that women generally have high levels of the hormone estrogen. The fact is improvements are made in muscle tone, strength and endurance and not necessarily in size.
Here is a great page all about strength training and it shows various moves you can do:
http://www.womensheart.org/content/exercise/strength_training.asp

Food:
I'm big on veggies since starting this healthy journey! Let's all make sure we get in 2-3 servings of veggies in our meal diary's everyday this week! Get creative! They don't have to be with every meal, but the more the merrier...did you know you can add spinach to your eggs in the morning? I haven't tried that yet but I bet its good...

Does anyone else feel like they are continuously gaining/losing the same 5lbs? thats so me right now.

YES! I've been gaining/losing the same 5 pounds from July 11 to September 5! But I'm happy to report that I FINALLY broke my plateau with today's weigh-in.

9/6 SW: 196.0
9/13: 193.4

Here's hoping I won't hit another plateau anytime soon!!!

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Perfect! I just started a strength training routine yesterday. I spent a lot of time researching what moves to do, how many reps, how many sets etc.. and came up with a great routine for beginners. If anyone needs a structured weekly routine, I'll be happy to post it.

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Please do post your strength training routine. I'm always confused about what to do.
Thanks,
Opal

Yay, I lost 3.6 pounds this week! I have to say, knowing I would be weighing in this morning really kept me motivated during the week. It's nice to be accountable, so thank you!
I exercised 6/7 days, but do at least an hour a day. I also got my water in, which took some getting used to, but I can tell it made a difference.

haha glad I'm not the only one. The first challenge I did on MFP I did sooo well! now for the past 3 months I've been bouncing between 143-149.. its really annoying.

Stregnth training.. I only do 3 days a week. My trainer was real adament about giving your muscles time to fully recover which is why he told me to stop circuit training. So M W F I stregnth train (I'll switch it up for the day to suit me)

M- I do abs/legs. This is going to mostly strenghten my core and honestly, this is the only day that I'm allowed a video. Level 2 of the 6W 6P really does a killer work out for your legs/abs without really focusing elsewhere. I do mine with an 8lb weight for resistance.

W- Biceps and back. this usually consists of bicep curls (whether with hand weights or barbell... I prefer barbell), hammer curls, concentration curls, and I do a lot of work on my ball. Back strengthining I do bent over rows, bent knee plank with rows. I try to use a heavier weight for these and less reps.

Th- Triceps & Shoulders- includes kickbacks, dips, push ups, shoulder press, shoulder squeeze, lateral pull down, seated rows (which are my favorite because I can adjust the weights on the machine).

I do cardio in between. that way I give my muscles adequate recovery time.

Edit: I also want to add that I do try to change up the strength training I do on a week to week basis so I don't fall into muscle memory. and because I feel like a wealth of knowledge today he said for fat burning cardio to not let my heart rate get above 145! seriously, you know how hard that is? When I was running my heart rate would get between 165-190, so I had to cut it out all together and now I walk at an incline for 45 minutes. or do the elliptical which is pretty low on the heart rate front as well. That number varies based on your weight but once you reach a certain HR you start burning through your protein and since I don't get enough protein daily, I was told to quit the running.

Please do post your strength training routine. I'm always confused about what to do.
Thanks,
Opal

Ok. so some info first:
-This is for beginners (beginner=anyone who hasn't strength trained regularly in 6 months).

-Uses only dumbbells, and a bench. But if you have barbells, access to a gym or other equipment, feel free to change it up, as long as you are targeting the same muscle groups. I don't have a bench, so I use an aerobics step. If you don't have that either, you can even put 2 stools together and lay on that. You basically need something that will allow your elbows to go below your body on each side when you lay down.

- From my research I found out that beginners benefit the most from a 3 day a week full body workout plan, rather than the split routines many people do. That is good for more advanced people.

- Don't expect to gain any muscle because to actually gain muscle weight, you need to have a caloric surplus. Most of us here are trying to lose weight so we all need a caloric deficit. But what a strength straining program does for people trying to lose weight is, MAINTAIN muscle, so when we lose the fat on top of the muscle, we actually have muscles that show. This is what "toning up" means. After you have reached a low body fat, that's when you can have a caloric surplus and gain weight in muscle.

- Women will NOT bulk up like men do, so lift heavy.

- How heavy? Everyone's definition of heavy is different. To determine the ideal weight for you, pick up a weight and do 6-8 reps. If you feel like you can go on and on and on and keep doing it, it's way too light. If you are aiming for 8 reps, you shouldn't be able to do more than 9-10 reps with your selected weight. Once you reach 10, you should be too tired to do another one. So at around 8 reps, you should be tired, but with 1 or 2 more reps remaining. For me, this is about an 8lbs dumbbell in each hand.

-Do not weigh yourself when you are sore. I know this might not happen to everyone but when I first started running, I was sore all over and even though I was eating right, I gained 3lbs the first few days. I know this is from muscles retaining water and glycogen when they are sore to repair themselves, but nevertheless, it can be very discouraging. So don't weigh yourself, or don't freak out when you weigh yourself

-We will not be working each and every muscle group every single time because when you work your large muscles, you already work in the smaller ones like biceps and triceps and calves.

-Lastly, here is the website I did all my research on:
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/the-ultimate-weight-training-workout-routine/
and another website where I found what moves to do for what muscle group. I found the info in the above website helpful but didn't like the exercise routine they came up with. So the following website is great for selecting the exercises. You can use this to substitute any exercise, it's great because it sorts by muscle group, equipment used (dumbell, barbell, body weight etc..) and shows you what muscle is what) Also check this website out if you don't know how to do any of the exercises I will list below, you can see an animation of it and an explanation of correct form.
http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html

And finally, my routine

It is the same for Mon-Wed-Fri and I will change it up in 1-2 months.

Back: Dumbbell bent over row- 8 reps 3 sets
Chest: Dumbbell bench press- 8 reps 3 sets
Quads (Thighs): Dumbbell squats- 8 reps 3 sets
Hamstrings (Upper back leg): Dumbbell straight leg deadlifts- 8 reps 3 sets
Abs: Bicycle crunches: 8 reps 3 sets
Shoulders: Dumbbell lateral raises 8 reps 3 sets

The following is optional:
Mon: Add 6 reps 2 sets of dumbbell tricep extensions to the above.
Wed: Add 6 reps 2 sets of standing calf raises with dumbbells to the above.
Fri: Add 6 reps 2 sets of dumbbell bicep curls to the above.

We already work these muscles when we do the main routine but I personally feel like I need to concentrate on these 3 areas, not sure if it will make a big difference though.

Oh, and lastly, the first day, pick a really light weight like a 4lbs dumbbell and do your first exercise just to focus on form. Don't worry about the weight at first, just make sure you are doing it right, that's very important.

I hope this helped, and I know it was a long post but the information really helped me. I personally can't just follow a routine blindly if I'm not sure it's the right thing for me, that's why I need info and references so I can make sure it's a good routine.. that's why I posted all that info first.. Hopefully it wasn't a boring read :yawn:

Have a great week everyone :bigsmile:

So, I've been working really hard, but am a bit stuck. I find it hard to believe that one afternoon of drinking at a beer fest completely and totally busted the whole week, expecially since I played 2 games of ultimate the day after. But this week is a new week. So here are my official stats as of this am:
SW 9/6: 162.
CW 9/13: 162.5
GW: 155
NSV: decrease inches and increase muscle tone - still need to take my measurements so I have a "baseline" to go off of