Body Revolution

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with this blog. I'll explain. At the begining of April I started doing Jillian Michaels 90 day body revolution. That meant walking up every morning at 4:45am to do a 30 min. workout. That meant buying, preparing, cleaning all my meals. That meant doing another 30 min. workout in the evening. It was a HUGE shift for me. I have actually been VLOGGING about it on youtube (strongfoundation12 channel). It's been a crazy journey. Next week will be WEEK 12 (2 more weeks to go). I have lost about 18 lbs (offical weigh in days are Mondays). I am within my healthy BMI (114-144) at 141.7 lbs. I have 6.7 lbs to go to get to my goal weight and I have no doubts that I will get there. I am health fit and loving life. Thanks for following me. I will blog more about the journey this summer when I have break.

Week 2 of Back on Track

Well I am offically 6 lbs down and 20 lbs down from this time last year. It is exciting. I feel after 2 weeks the worst of "getting started" is over. In the begining I fight myself for... everything. I fight against exercising. I fight against eating too much or against the wrong foods. It is a constant battle but slowly new habits are being made and the struggle isn't as hard now. Seeing the pounds melt off is definately motivation too.
Finally back to eating healthy and exercising. And once again my house is a disaster. I don't know if I will ever be organized enough to get all three in order at the same time. I think the two hour a day commute has alot to do with it. Leaving my house at 6:30am and not getting back till 5:30pm is tough. Making dinner and exercising take up 1 hour and 1/2 to 2 hours (if I need to go to the store) of my evening and showering another 1/2 hour. With the 2 hours of down time dishes, laundry and cleaning house doesn't seem so appealing. I am about this close'' to getting a personal assistant once a week to help clean and shop and pay bills. If you know of someone, let me know.
I am 10 pounds away from lowest last Sept./ Oct. and can't wait to get there again. My hope is to shed this 10 pounds over the next month and half and start in May really working on those last 15-20 pounds before July 14th comes around. Thanks for all of those that have encouraged me over the past year. I really feel like this year is my year to make all my dreams come true. ;)

Some more pictures of what I eat

Here's breakfast and Lunch for today.
Breakfast: 4 egg white breakfast burrito with whole wheat tortilla (from JUST) cheddar cheese, tomato and a tiny bit of sour cream.
Lunch: Whole wheat pausta, with left over hamburger and tomato sauce... SO GOOD!

Organization is KEY

When I was reading through my journal from this last year I happened upon a section that talked about all the things that sobotage my efforts to lose wieght, exercise, make friends / make boyfriend :), etc. And when it comes to eating right and exercise ORGANIZATION was my #1 reason for failing. I would eat poorly because I didn't have the right food in the refridgerator or I wouldn't have the right shoes on to exercise after work or I didn't remember to prepare a lunch so I had to get something fast before work or go with out... you get the point. I am trying hard to be more organized this time around. Have a PLAN. I write you what I am going to eat for 3 days in advance and then make a shopping list accordingly and then plan out a time to go get the stuff.
Today I wasn't feeling good so I stayed home most of the day. I did 4 loads of laundry (and discovered I have 30 pairs of socks...idk), I cleaned out the fridge, I did most of the dishes, I prepared for this week (food wise).
It's hard because I know I can't do everything, so I have to make sacrifices, like not going out to eat with friends after church. (Again if I was more organized I would of brought my own dinner and then I could of gone.) I hopefully everything will become habit again I won't have to analysis everything I do. I serious spend 30 minutes each night just planning out the following day. Reminding myself if all the things that need to get done and when. Making progress though, one step at a time.

Week One

On Monday I got serious about countling calories, eating healthful foods, and exercising... and blogging. :) Last Monday when I weighted myself I weighed 164.7 lbs. (starting wieght). Today I weighed 160.6. So excited! I checked my weigh lose the first week (last time) and had lost 3.5 pounds so I am right on track. I know some of that is water weight but still excited none the less.
Got some new goals. I want to be 156.8 or less by April 9th (that would mean I would be 20 pounds from that date last year. I want to be 147.0 by May 19th would break my record (lowest I've been is 147.6). I want to be 139 by the time I go home on July 14th. That's 20 Weeks with 25.6 lbs. to lose. Ideally I would like to be 128-135. So by hope is to try to get into that range by the end of the summer. Hoping to do bootcamp again this summer which would really help. Last year I lost 4 lbs. while home for 6 weeks so it's doable. Thanks again for taking this journey with me.

Exercise

So eating healthy is only one aspect of a healthy life. Exercise in another. In order to burn enough calories each day to have a big enough defict you got to exercise.
One of my favorite "new" forms of exercise is Yoga. As I have menitioned before I have the Bob Harper's Weight Lose Yoga video. I love it. I feel so good after I do the video. Also, before I got hurt, was playing soccer several nights a week. It's great high intensity workout. It doesn't really matter how long you workout, it matters how long you have an elevated heart rate.
I used to jog/walk for exercise back in the day and was always baffled as to why I would lose 10 pound right away and then get stuck. Well, one because I was doing the same form of exercise day in and day out, so my body had adjusted and wasn't burning as many calories. I have learned that best part in muscle confusion exercise. Where you do one exercise (say push-ups) for 30 reps and the you do jumpimng jacks while your arms rest, then you do sit ups and the legs and arms rest but you never let your heart rate lower. It's that constant confusion that keeps your body burning calories. I guess that is why I love doing bootcamp this summer. I had someone who new the right progression and just told me and I did it. It hard to know what routine to do if you have never done it before. That's why I am also like workout videos. I just ordered Jillian Michael's 90 day body revolution that goes off of this exercise philosophy. I'll review it after I get started.
Anyways, Bottom line get moving 3-5 days a week. Don't forget to rest at least once a week so your body can repair the damage you did while exercising.

What do you eat?

I don't know how many times (a day) I got asked this question when people started noticing me losing weight this last year. People just assume you eat salad. And if I was on a "diet" that might be the way I would naively go about it. But let me ask you a question. Do you want to be eating salad for every meal for the rest of your life? Heck no! That's why these fad diets NEVER work. It's not something you can maintain long term. Then when you go back to eating "normal" food you gain the wieght back plus X amount of weight. There's a name for it... Refeeding syndrome.
So when people ask me what I eat I say,"everything." It's all in moderation. Bottom line IT CALORIES IN AND CALORIES OUT! You have to eat less calories than you are burning every day. If one pound is 3500 calories then you have to burn around 500 calories more a day than you eat to lose about a pound a week (and double that for about 2 pounds a week). It truely is that simple.
That said if you eat 2000 calories a day in brownies you would be sick, mal nutritioned and hungry all the time, but you probaly wouldn't gain or lose any weight. (Just take my late grandma for example who only ate cheetoes and chocolate pudding for years). So alittle more thought has to go into it.
You ideally want to eat foods that taste good, satify you, and keep you full till the next time you can eat again. That's where EDUCATION comes into play here. You want to combine the right foods to give you the optimum results. Here's just a few things I have learned... let's say TOP 7
1. If it doesn't come from the ground or doesn't have a mother: DON"T EAT IT. aka no processed food, soda,etc.
2. Always try to eat fruit and veggies in their natural state..aka. don't juice. The reasoning behind this is that you are getting larger amounts of sugar and none of the necessary fiber. Your body isn't used to not having solids and might think it's going into a starvation period. (see4.)
3. Eat protein at every meal...even your snack.
4. Eat 3 main meals and one 300 calorie snack... don't eat after 7 pm. (Never skip a meal, and NEVER Fast/cleanse unless for Spiritual or Medical (doctor's orders) reasons.) It distroys your metabolism and makes you GAIN wieght not loss it. Your body goes into starvation mood where it releases cortizon (sp?), and other hormones that are not good for losing weight, your body starts eating muscle (not fat) because it doesn't need muscle to live but it does need fat (energy). Just BAD, BAD, BAD. Don't do it.
5. Eat organic whenever possible... google reasons to eat organic if you are stuggling to understand why. Or read previous post.
6. Never allow you body to be over 1000 calories defict in a day or 7000 calories in a week. (That's for my body size.) Again you don't want your body to think that it's going to go into a period of starvation where it hold onto fat. If you constantly feed your body properly then it will say to itself "I don't need this because I know tommorow I'll get more food (energy to replace it." If you platued you need to eat 500 more calories for one day to let your body know that it's ok to burn that fat.
7. Don't do anything you can't do for the rest of your life. It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle change. Diets are temporary with temprary results, Life style changes are for a life time and have long term results.

Ok so you might be saying , "JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU EAT ALREADY!" So since I have started counting calories again I have written down every thing I've eaten. So here's a couple of days. By the way I have lost 2 pounds already this week. :)

Tuesday
BREAKFAST
coffee with goat's milk
blueberries and yogurt with a 1/4 orange juice (blueberry are whole not juiced) smootie.
piece of homemade whole wheat bread with a 1/2 tbs. of homemade butter

LUNCH
Subway Turkey Sandwich
POP Chips
mystery cookie (from the stash in the office)

SNACK
grapes (20)
hard-boiled egg

DINNER
Hamburger pattie with Lettuce bun, tad of cheddar cheese and grilled onions (pictured)
Homemade Brownie (Master your Metabolism Cookbook)

TOTAL: 1470 calories

THURSDAY
Breakfast
Coffee with goat's milk
Homemade Whole wheat waffle with a table spoon of organic peanut butter

Lunch
Subway Veggie Sandwich
POP Chips
Brownie

Snack
Organic Apple
Hard boiled egg

Dinner
1/2 Chicken breast (because I wasn't hungry enough for the other half).
Broccoli with a tad bit of cheddar cheese
Chocolate covered frozen banana with coconut oil. (Makes the chocolate into a hard shell

TOTAL: 1500 calories

Speed Bump

As you can see the picture attached to this post... getting healthy again had a wretch thrown into it this past week and half. I had rushed home and grabbed my new FREE LINE skates to go exercise in Ocean Park in Taitung. It's a really beautiful park with bike paths that kindof like a boardwalk to you Cali people. There are so slopes (nothing really steep) that I can ride down and then I run back up. Great fun and exercise. It was getting a little dark and I decided to call it a night and was just going to skate back to my car. The path has a turn in it and there was a man coming towards me... I think I got nervous and .... long story short I fell (don't exactly remember what happened.) The pain was so intense that I knew immediately that I wasn't going to beable to walk on it. The man carried me on his back to my car about 30 feet away and I called friends and went to the hospital. Fortunely, it wasn't broken.
So for the 5 days straight I laid with ice packs on my ankle and tried to be as comfortable as I could. With no way to go anywhere (motorcycle and car, require both feet) I was stuck eating whatever was at my house. Not good.
Today is the first day that I have been able to put any weight on it. Trying to get my house back in order and hopefully do some grocery shopping for some healthy alternatives tonight and tomorrow.
Was alittle disappointed but not shoked to see 164.6 lb again this morning. However, I will say, where I was lacking motivation to exercise before... I AM MOTIVATED! I am predicting another week or maybe two until I am able to really exercise but after that there is no stopping me.

No more CHEMICALS!

One of the things that I have learned on this journey to a healthier me is Educating yourself is key to sucess. Alot of people have OPINIONS on what it takes to be healthy but in my experience ... they are just that OPINIONS. They aren't based on research (or current research that is.) We catch an artical their or a T.V. show here and we think we are experts. But really... how much do really know about Healthy Living.
That said one of things that I have been doing over the last year is educating myself about Health. I have read tons of books (all mentioned in previous posts) listen to podcast (Jillian Michaels), read articles, etc.
One of the reoccuring themes is CHEMICALS! Chemicals in our food, beauty products, soaps... you name it and they're there. But how did that happen?! If it's being sold in the stores, doesn't have to be tested and proven safe for people buying it?! APPARENTLY NOT!
One of the biggest mistakes I've made (and I think most people make) is trusting that if it's on the shelf, it's ok to eat. Wow, what a mistake. Until recently I never gave it a second though about what kind of cleaning products I used or the shampoo I used. If it did the job (and smelled nice) then it was good enough for me. Little did I know that the shampoo and other things I have around my house had harmful (cancer causing) chemicals in them. Seriously, how many of you reading this have ever read the label on your shampoo? Why, right? Well, take a look... if you see fragrance (parfum) or sulfate (this or that)or paraben, phthalate, ptroleum, etc. You might want to think twice. Just google one of those things an 1000's of articles will pop up about the dangers.
Bottomline... we need to stop being so non chalaunt about our health. We need to be more aware (making conscious decisions) about what we are putting into and on our bodies, not just trusting that it's safe if it's on the shelf.
It's been a process of me... and honestly I am not 100% organic yet. When I run out of this or that I now search for organic, eco-friendly, green products to replace the old ones. (I just don't have the $$ to replace everything at once.) So that's my challenge to you. LOOK at the label of one of the soups that you use, research the ingredients and educate yourself on whether it is safe to be using. ROME wasn't build in a day... but over time we can change for better.

It's been a long winter

Just as my Title indicates I haven't been doing so well in the healthy eating catergory. It started back in ... November. As the weather turned colder I got hungrier for all the wrong foods. I got sick and my will power went out the window. Bottomline I lose focus... I allowed myself to slip back into unhealthy habits.
So here I am on Feb. 22nd at 160.4 lbs. I am determined to lose this weight! I just struggle to find the same drive I had a year ago. I gave up TV for lent and am going to spend my time exercising and educating myself about health. My new goals are 150 by April 9th. and 135 by July 9th. That's 1.5 lbs a week till April 9th and about a lb. a week after that. That is a healthy goal.
Here we go again.