No, I didn't melt. But that's a good thing.

Good morning! I'm just gonna dive right in. First off, more new DVD feedback. Today's weapon of choice?



Yoga, JM style. Now, I'm probably the last person that should be reviewing a yoga DVD because I'm still a novice and, despite my best intentions, am quite sporadic in my practice. HOWEVER, I think it's safe to say that this isn't your typical yoga workout.

My previous experience with yoga rests on the Biggest Loser Weight Loss Yoga DVD (only made it through levels 1 and 2; still haven't tried level 3) and Baron Baptiste: Journey into Power Level 1 (which I actually grew to love last time I did it; need to make time for it again soon!).

So, after having done those yoga workouts, Jillian's was different, but not in a bad way. There are two 30 minute workouts and today I just stuck with level one. To be honest, I was pretty terrified because I didn't know what to expect. I thought it was going to be this hardcore burn session, set to industrial music or something. But it wasn't that bad at all.

Basically, Jillian sets you up with standard yoga moves (sun saltuations, downward dog, crescent, warrior 2 &3, etc.), but adds movement so you can perform reps of the move and then hold the move in place for 15 seconds. For example, when she takes you into warrior 2, she has you repeatedly bend and straighten your front leg so you get a little burn going and then you hold for 15 seconds with the front leg bent. She also has you do this with push-ups and side planks.

As typical with JM workouts, she has 2 helpers; one to show beginner moves and the other busting out advanced moves.

The thing I loved most about this DVD? The pace! That 30 minutes just flies by. She purposely moves through each interval quickly so you can benefit from a higher heart rate.

So how did I do? Well, not that great, haha. Since it's easily been a month (or more) since my last yoga session, my form and balance were pretty crap. I've never performed warrior 3 before, so I was getting really frustrated that I couldn't hold myself up and was grasping for the top of the TV to keep from falling. Pretty pathetic, but it only made me want to do the DVD more so I could increase my balance and benefit from body weight training.

Although I appreciated the fast pace of the workout itself, I do wish the cooldown stretch was longer and more relaxing, like the one on the Biggest Loser yoga DVD. Her stretches were definitely effective (I didn't realize how stiff and tense I had gotten over the past few days from my other workouts), but it would've been nice to hold them longer and focus on deep breathing. Yes, I can do that on my own after the DVD is over, but I like it when longer cooldown stretches are included. Ah well.

During the cooldown, Jillian starts to talk about how it's not about being perfect, it's just about practice. That really resonated with me. Obviously, such a statement can be applied to my life in various ways, but when applying it specifically to yoga, I really need to repeat it in my head. If I'm more patient with myself and don't get so frustrated when my form isn't perfect, my yoga sessions won't be so sporadic.

Overall? Another favorite, yet unique addition to my JM collection. She has motivated me, once again, to pursue this workout with more regularity. I'm also motivated to start doing my other yoga DVDs more often too. I think my goal between now and the end of the year is to be able to conquer level 2 of Jillian's DVD and level 3 of the Biggest Loser DVD. It's totally do-able!

Ok, on to food pics. Once again, I took all of my breakfast, lunch and snack pics this morning to save time. I'll try and do that from now on.

Breakfast:



A 3-minute oatmeal cookie & a hard-boiled egg. Thanks to Christie at Honoring Health and her Zucchini Bread Oatmeal, I decided to use up the last of our zucchini in an oatmeal cookie. Yuuuum! Totally loved it. It was like eating a pice of zucchini bread for breakfast. I tried to squeeze out as much excess liquid as I could from the zucchini, but it still made things pretty moist. Before adding the zucchini to the mix, I sprinkled it with splenda and cinnamon. I added about an extra tablespoon of oats, but perhaps more flour would've been better. The taste was awesome though. And I'm still kicking myself for not adding dried cranberries because I think that would've brought it all together. Oh well. Next time. And there will be a next time because I love zucchini and am all for adding it to my breakfast now!

Morning snack:



Good ol' banana and strawberries.

Lunch:



Leftover slice of spinach mushroom pizza (ended up having once slice last night and gave the rest to Doug; I'm officially over pizza this week!) with a spaghetti squash salad. Last night I hacked open a spaghetti squash that I bought a while back and stuck it in the microwave. I was hungry all day yesterday, so to keep from filling up on crap, I went for the squash because it never fails to fill me up.

There's still a ton leftover, so today I took some romaine salad mix and slapped some squash on top (when I cooked it last night, I added: olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic & onion powder) and sprinkled it with fat-free feta for extra protein. Soooo looking forward to this meal!

Afternoon snack:



Pear and some string cheese.

For dinner, I'm planning on trying some Fiesta Flapjacks from Kath at KERF. I've actually been wanting to try the Kodiak Cakes mix for a couple of months now, so I was super-stoked when a) I saw that King Sooper's sold it and b) I saw this recipe a couple of days ago! Some things are just meant to be. I'll let you know how they turn out!

Running & Reviews

Good grief, it's already February. Ugh. Anywho.

This morning, I headed to the gym and tried out a treadmill interval routine that boasted a 500 calorie burn. I'm still not counting calories these days, but I'm sure I burned that 500, if not a little more. It was tough, but it of course went by super fast (my favorite part about interval training) and I felt pretty damn refreshed afterward. Highly recommend! I'd also recommend browsing around the FitSugar website when you have some free time. They have a decent variety of interval workouts on various machines, as well as a lot of food/fitness info.

Quick follow up to my last post: I got a chance to try out my new workout DVDs this weekend.

Jari Love's Extremely Ripped 1000: Great DVD! I'm always hesitant to try new DVDs these days because they usually don't challenge me enough, but this one definitely exceeded my expectations (and made me sweat my ass off).

It's basically a bunch of circuits back-to-back and they all start with 3 minutes of cardio, followed by one minute of strength training, mostly with dumbbells. If you've done 30 Day Shred, it's kind of a similar format (and 3 times longer, haha). The hour routine can be split into two half hour sessions if you prefer. I liked that there wasn't any prolonged breaks in between circuits; Jari just keeps you moving along the whole time so your heart rate stays raised during the majority of the workout.

She has people working out with her in the back and they're all either doing beginner, intermediate or advanced versions of the moves the entire time. I thought this was especially awesome because it enabled me to keep up, instead of getting over/underwhelmed and turning off the DVD. I alternated between intermediate and advanced for a nice challenge.

I did the full hour and just when I thought it was over, she closes with a push-up and ab routine. I definitely groaned when that came up, but I suffered through it anyway (I think it was about 5 minutes or so).

All in all, this one was definitely worth the money. It forces me to get a good amount of strength training in, but also has enough cardio to keep me sweating on the days I don't feel like running or going to the gym for the elliptical or incline training.

So if you are, dare I say it, bored with the Jillian Michaels' DVDs and want a good gym substitute, this is next best thing (in my opinion, of course).

Weight Loss Cardio Kick: I don't have a ton to say about this one... Overall, I liked it, but it definitely didn't bring on as much sweat as I had hoped.

It did fulfill my craving for kick-boxing though. As I mentioned before, I was disappointed with the last few Tae Bo DVDs I got, so it was nice to try something different.

This DVD also works in a bit of strength training with dumbbells as well, so I'll definitely be doing it again. I think I'll just save it for days where I just want to do a fun light-to-moderate workout, versus busting my ass doing something at a higher intensity.


That's about all for now. I will quickly note that Jillian Michaels has a new yoga DVD coming out soon!



I've got it baaaad for this woman, so of course I will be getting it. I totally laughed at the thought of her teaching yoga because it doesn't seem like it would be relaxing at all, but I guess we'll see.

Nostalgia.

Yesterday, I was feeling a bit nostalgic since it had been one year since Obama's historic election. It didn't feel that long ago, as the year has basically flown by for me (and probably for some of you too). Anywho, it led me to look over my old LiveJournal entries and look back at where I was on my weight-loss journey, a year ago, on November 4, 2008.

I was still in the 200s. I was just starting to jog, 10 minutes at a time. Today, I'm about 54 pounds lighter. And I run. And even though I don't really like to, I can run up to an hour, non-stop. If you told me I would be able to do that 2 and a half years ago, I would've laughed in your face, right before shoving multiple handfuls of peanut M&Ms in my mouth.

It just reminded me that a) it's important to log your progress during a weight-loss journey and b) it's even more important to go back every once in a while and see how far you've come. A lot of us make progress every day, but sometimes we get so caught up in our routines (*cough* raises hand), that we completely forget about said progress and miss out on opportunities for emotional and psychological growth and stability.

In other news, I've been doing pretty good this week. I totally blew it on Halloween, but my weigh-ins over the past few days have shown that I've more than recovered. I've been keeping up with exercise, but have been trying to scale things back a bit to help ease me out of that workout maniac phase that I've been going through the past couple of months.

I've been making it a goal to incorporate yoga 2x a week and I'm starting to fall in love with it. I've just been using the Biggest Loser Weight-Loss Yoga DVD, but it's been great since I'm a beginner. I had done level one sporadically over the past year, but I've FINALLY added on level 2 and I like learning the new moves. It's tough, but I like testing my muscles while also improving my balance, breathing and flexibility. Without sounding too hippy-ish, I think yoga is helping me work on some other issues in my life, such as...

...Compulsive overeating. Yes, that's more or less why I've been in a funk recently. It's come back to haunt me. Compulsive overeating started in my childhood and stayed with me until I was in my 20s and tipping the scales at 248 pounds. Once I started losing weight, I thought I had conquered it almost completely. I figured since binges only happened once in a while, I no longer had to identify overeating as a problem.

The thing is, just because it doesn't happen everyday (or week or month), doesn't mean it's not still a problem. And of course, I've been in complete denial for about the past month. I've finally 'fessed up to myself and just acknowledging that it's still an issue for me has helped quite a bit. Now, I'm moving on to resources, both online and in book form. At first, I felt silly (and admittedly, a bit weak) having to rely on external resources to help me achieve internal happiness and peace with myself, but I've come to realize that I shouldn't feel ashamed at all. Reading about other people's experiences and internalizing their advice has lifted so much grief off of my chest; it's been great.

But, as with anything else, baby steps. Post-goal life has turned out to be more emotionally demanding than I had expected, but if I was strong and determined enough to lose the weight, I can sure as hell put forth the same strength and dedication in maintaining the loss and working through these remaining issues. I just need to learn to forgive myself and be patient with myself this time, instead of the numbers on the scale each week.

It's been a pretty good week so far. And today is shaping up to be nice as well; I forced myself to take a day off from the gym (first day off from working out since October 9), I'm leaving work early, gonna enjoy the nice weather by walking (not sprinting) to the post-office and then heading to my mom's for a grilled salmon dinner. I'm looking forward to the walk because it's surprisingly warm today. I can't remember the last time I walked somewhere, just for the sake of enjoying the outdoors and as a means of transportation. The goal is not to sweat and freak out over what level my heart rate is at, but rather just enjoy the outdoors whilst simultaneously getting an errand done.

Payday! Woo!

(***If you're new to the blog, feel free to read my introductory posts and my Not-so-secret-Secret to Weight Loss.)

FOOD:

So the meat loaf recipe from last night? Yeah, don't try it yet. I mean, the flavor was awesome, but the typical meatloaf structure just wasn't there. Needs more breadcrumbs (and probably not the panko variety, which I'm partial to), eggs and probably less sauce and less zucchini. I drained it several times and left it in the oven longer than what I listed and each slice still fell apart when I served it. Just FYI.

breakfast:
egg white- 1
1 oz. avocado- 1
light english muffin- 1

snack:
apple- 1
carrot sticks- 0
PB2- 1

lunch:
leftover meatloaf- 5
spinach w/ laughing cow wedge- 1

snack:
lightfull smoothie- 1

dinner:
chicken breast- 3
bell pepper/tomato- 0
1/2 tsp olive oil/parmesan- 1
white beans- 2

post-dinner:
yoplait delight- 2
PB2 sandwich- 2

total points used: 22/22
activity points: yoga (0.5), grocery shopping (1)- 1.5
WAPs: 29/35 remaining

Yeah, went over my points last night with ice cream. I'm usually not one to make excuses for poor food choices, but I'm gonna blame the hormones. Only because after inhaling the cold, creamy, chocolaty, peanut-buttery goodness, I felt loved, not guilty, haha. It was one of those feeding-my-soul moments.

EXERCISE:

Even though I probably could have slept until six, I still left my alarm set for 5 and did some yoga. I figured I would benefit from the stretching and I think I did. My flexibility and balance are still horrible though. I think I need to try and add the yoga to another one of my other workout days. Probably to a day where I do one of the Gym Junkies workouts, since they're so short, time-wise. I just don't think once a week is enough. Plus, I'm still doing weeks 1-2. I'd like to progress to the next level sometime this year, haha.

===================================

Too lazy this morning to rant too long on last night's Biggest Loser. Jillian had a lot of great moments though, I thought. I think it's funny how everyone thinks Tracey is crazy now. Did I or did I not call those Crazy Eyes the first night? I knew she was off from the beginning. Last night, my god. She rocked the scale though, so I can't hate on her too much. Poor Coach Mo.

In other news, it's PAYDAY! i worked on the grocery list for two days, haha. We're to the point where we cleaned out a lot of canned and frozen stuff too. Definitely going to re-stock on a lot of stuff. Especially beans, canned tomatoes and frozen fruits/veggies. I've been craving that stuff a lot lately. I'm even leaving work early today so I can hit up 3 stores. It really is pathetic how excited I am about this.

I've had a chance to try those Da Vinci syrups that I ordered. The pumpkin pie one is pretty good, but it tastes best with more milk and cinnamon. The white chocolate one is just awesome. They both have that artificial taste of course, but when buying sugar-free products, that's to be expected. Overall, I'm quite happy with them. Makes for a nice change in my coffee routine.

FOOD:

breakfast:
f.f. cottage cheese w/ berries- 2
kashi waffle- 1
coffee w/ .25 c. almond milk- 0

snack:
apple- 1
9 almonds- 1
carrot/celery sticks- 0
PB2- 1

lunch:
leftover pasta w/ meat & veggie sauce- 8

snack:
cucumber/bell pepper- 0
f.f. poppyseed dressing- 1
kashi bar- 2

dinner (planned):
HG Cheeseburger Pizza- 4
broccoli w/ carrots- 1

post-dinner:
peaches- .5
PB2 sandwich- 2
cereal- 4

total points used: 28.5/24 (Wendie Plan)
activity points: Biggest Loser Yoga, level one- .5
net points: 28
WAPs: 4/35 remaining

Quiz tonight, so I'm just planning something quick, easy & filling for dinner. I'm not sure why I avoided vegetarian crumbles for so long; they're damn convenient! Low in points and packed with protein too.

EXERCISE:

Yes, Wednesdays are supposed to be my day off, but I knew I was still gonna wake up at 5 am anyway (it's disgusting that my body is used to being up at that time now), so I figured I would do some yoga to work on my flexibility, give my joints a rest and also feel like I accomplished something for the day. I know it sounds weird, but I really do feel useless when I don't work out and it puts me in a shit mood for the rest of the day.

So I've decided to get back into the Biggest Loser Yoga DVD that we got several months ago and never use. Level one is only 30 minutes (5 min. warm-up, 20 min. workout, 5 min. cool-down), so it feels like enough of a break from my usual workout routine, but still forces me to challenge my body while simultaneously relaxing it. I think this is a nice compromise to taking an entire day off from exercise altogether.

I didn't wear my heart rate monitor because I knew I wouldn't get sweaty enough to keep the chest strap wet, so I estimated that I burned between 50 and 100 cals. I just gave myself half an activity point. I'm not really concerned with getting points for it anyway since it's so low-intensity.

Really worked my arms, especially with all the stuff done in plank position. It kinda sucked, but that's the kind of arm work I need right now. I'm so disappointed in my lack of upper-body strength, so hopefully more yoga (in addition to my strength/resistance training) will help.

Planning on hitting the gym tomorrow for cardio intervals. I'm taking Friday off from work, but will probably go to the gym again or possibly do a P90X workout at home. We'll see.