Big Ben Spending

Just wanted to report that I have spent "Ben" (the $100 bill I won) on a new bike. After discounts and the $100, I only spend $10.50 out of pocket. Thank you Sweat Life for my new bike!!!! Carter can't wait to take bike rides with me!!

Final weigh in and my last week

Phew.....last week was a busy week. I felt the need to kick it into high gear and workout like I had gone crazy. If you haven't figured it out already, I'm a very competitive person. I've been behind a contestant for the a while and I haven't gotten myself into high gear to pass her up. One of the main reasons, recently, has been my injury. I'm happy to report that my heel has felt much better after I took a week to rest. By rest, I simply mean that I only worked out on my planned personal training days and I didn't run on it.

But this last week, I went crazy. I feel like running is the best cardio exercise for me to shed the pounds, although I hate doing it, I love the way it feels after I'm done. I would get up and run first thing in the morning. I probably ran 3-4 miles when I would normally be reading the newspaper or watching my the morning Today show. I then worked out in the evening-either with our planned personal training sessions or again running around the neighborhood. I even ran around my house in circles one day while my kids napped-yes, I had gone crazy.

But, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and although I knew I couldn't keep up this pace for the long-term , I wanted to take advantage of the time I had and leave nothing left on the table.

Our final weigh-in was on Friday (April 29th). We weighed in, did our physiographs (that measures our body fat %), and did our final fitness test. I will say that I surprised even myself (yes my trainers were very surprised). I won't say what I lost, since the actual results don't come out until tomorrow, but I surpassed my trainer's goal by 3 pounds and my goal by 1 pound. But the weight doesn't determine the winner, that is why I'm still unsure if I have won. The winner will be the person who has lost the most body fat, determined by the physiograph. Those results they didn't share and will all be revealed tomorrow (May 3rd).

I'll find out tomorrow who won and believe me.......you will know too! :)

Planters Fasciitis and Finishing Strong

Well, the Dr. confirmed it! I have torn my planters fasciitis. This is connective tissue that runs almost the entire length of your foot. It ends at your heel. I've had this injury before but this time I have really done a number on it because I couldn't even put pressure on it.

It is a common injury and more than likely a result of my overzealous training schedule (along with the extra weight I've been carrying for the past 5 years!). I've been trying to make the most of the time that I have with this contest, so I've been working out 5 days a week and on two of those days I've been doing double workouts-one in the morning and another one in the evening. The stress of the exercises was taking a toll on my body and my body was telling me to lay off!

So, I went through a week of rest. I went 2 days without working out and the only workouts I did last week were the ones with the trainers at Sweat Life. They were really accommodating and the training didn't put any impact on my injury.

After the week semi "off", I started this week with the desire to "finish strong", as Dan will say. There are only two weeks left in the competition and I didn't want to leave anything on the table. I got back into my workouts with some elliptical training. I wanted to see how my foot would feel if I jogged, so I got on the treadmill this morning and ran. To my surprise, it didn't hurt at all. My knees (which are a chronic pain-literally) were bothering me more than my heel. Good news, I'm back in the game and planning on pounding it out until I loose the last 8 lbs.

I have 10 days to loose 6-8 lbs. 6 lbs would be the goal that Dan has set for me. But I set the 8 lbs goal to make it a nice even number.

The worst part about all of this is that my kids have about 7 Easter Egg hunts/parties in the next 5 days. Which means a lot of candy at my house! But if I want to win, I have to resist the candy for 10 more days and focus on my goal-8 lbs of fat....see ya!!!!!!!!!!!

Muddy Buddy

When April first started talking about the Muddy Buddy, a 10K bike/run adventure race, I looked at her like she was crazy. We were only about a month into our training and I felt like I wouldn't be any good at it. But the more we trained, the stronger I felt and we finally made the decision to go for it. I signed us up for the "competitive" female division, not really knowing what I was doing. I figured: why run a race if you're not going to be competitive? right? Well we quickly learned that we were way out of our league. But the good part about starting this heat was that there weren't a lot of people in our group and we went out 3rd.

The race started bright and early at 7:15 AM, which meant that we needed to be there by 6:15 AM and had our alarms going off at 5:15 AM....not my favorite thing to happen on a Saturday morning.

We decided that April was the stronger biker, so she would bike first and I was stuck with running! There were 5 legs of the race. April started first with the rest of the bikers in our group. They gave them a 1:30 lead and then the runners took off. We ran about ~1.5 miles and then we go to the obstacle course. This first obstacle was a 7 foot rock wall. April had already gotten to the wall on the bike, climbed it and she was now running. I climbed the rock wall and then hopped on the bike, which she left for me. I then biked the next ~1.5 miles to the second obstacle-the inflatable wall. It had rope squares to help you climb up. April was already at this obstacle when I got there and she took off on the bike. I started on my second run-another ~1.5 miles. Then we got to the third obstacle-the inflated short wall that we had to jump over without ropes and then crawl through more inflated tubes and out the obstacle. April had already been through and had started on her run. I jumped on the bike and headed toward the fourth obstacle. This leg I finally passed April while she was running (I was supposed to do this on my first bike leg-but I was too slow). I made it to the fourth obstacle-the Marine Assault, where you have to duck down and go through a maze with a rope roof. I finished the obstacle and headed out for my final run. Another 1.5 miles to the finish. I wasn't having my best day and had to walk a lot of this leg. I also developed a stitch in my side, which made me walk more. April then passed me on the bike and waited for me at the finish. When I finally got there, we raced together towards the final two obstacles-the rope wall and the mud pit. We scaled the small wall and then crawled through the pit of mud and finished together as MUDDY BUDDIES!!

Once they post the action shots, I'll add them to this post. For now, all I have is a before and after shot of the two of us!

We finished in 1 hour and 8 minutes. We got 46th place for the competitive women division and beat 30 other teams....not bad!

Timed Mile

This month's challenge was to improve our timed mile. Everyone had different goals based on our original time that we ran on week 4. My original time was 10:58. My goal for week 12 was 9:30. I trained for it as much as I could on a treadmill, but running in circles on a track is much different than a treadmill. The rest of the group ran their miles on Sunday afternoon, but since I was at the taping of the Ellen Show, I had to do it by myself on Monday afternoon. Everyone who ran on Sunday met their goals, so the pressure was on me to keep the record perfect. I felt good starting the race and completed the first lap in about two minutes. As I kept going I wondered if I started off too fast because my mind was really telling me that I needed to walk. But I knew that if I walked, I probably wouldn't meet my goal, so I pushed on. After completing the third lap, I looked down at my watch an realized that I had 3 minutes left to complete the last lap and meet my goal. This made me feel good so I pushed through the last lap by telling myself that it is almost over. I usually can sprint that last 100 yds, but the wind was blowing against me strong and I couldn't go any faster. I crossed the finish line at 9:05! I was so excited to be finished and have exceeded my goal. I cut my time by almost 2 minutes! WOW! I can't believe it....and I felt good about 2 minutes after : ) Up next......the next 5K...Girls on the Run. Stay tuned for how I shatter my original 5K time and possible run the entire 5K!!!!

My first 10K

I've already told you how much I dislike running, so when the trainers at Sweat Life told us we were going to run a 10K for our Saturday workout, I was a little disappointed. My knees had just started to feel pain free and I didn't think I could make it a mile without walking.

So the morning came and it was a little bit chilly. I knew it would warm up when the sun came up, so I put on shorts and a t-shirt. Then we began the run. I jogged at a slow pace, which I realized was around 11 min. miles. I was surprised to see the first mile marker show up so quickly. I wasn't even feeling winded. I kept going and realized after mile 2 that my hips were taking the brunt of all this terrain. I push past the hip aches and ran until mile 3. After that point, I did a run/walk routine that helped me finish the race in 1 hour 15 minutes! I was excited and felt great after the race. Within a few hours I started to begin to feel the soreness of what I had completed. By 6 PM, I was completely exhausted and couldn't walk without limping. Luckily, the next morning I felt back to normal!

Plateau, Homework & Nappy Hair

We had our 2-month weigh-in on Tuesday and I lost a unencouraging 3 lbs. While overall, I'm down 16 lbs, after having such a great first month, this last weigh-in was not my proudest moment. But if you take the 16 lbs and divide it over the 8 weeks I've been training, it comes to a loss of 2 lbs a week, which is a nice healthy weight-loss. So I'll just continue to look at the overall number and quickly forget that only 3 of that came off last month. I hit a plateau. We're working on changing things up to get my body moving back in the right direction.....the path to winning the contest! :)

For the past month, we've been doing "homework." This homework consists of doing workouts on our own. At first it was just once a week and now it is up to twice a week. The workout is a 35 minute cardio workout that keeps your body going back and forth to your 80% max heart rate. For my age, that HR is 150. So, since my knees haven't been doing well with running, I hit the elliptical machine. I warm up for 5 minutes and then start the climb to get the machine up to a hard workout. I do this fast pace hard workout for one minute and then go all the way back down so that my heart rate can recover back into the 115 range. I do this 6 times. I then cool down for about 2 minutes and I'm done! It is a quick and high calorie burning workout that kicks off most of my days. I've noticed lately that it has taken my body less time to recover. Originally it took about 2 minutes. Today it took me only 1:15! That means I'm getting into shape!!!

The worst part about all this working out is the nappy feeling I have all day. My hair is always up in a ponytail and I wonder why I'm going to wash it when I'm just going to workout again first thing in the morning. Plus most mornings after my workout, I'm off to the races to get all the things done in the morning before the boys get out of school. This usually doesn't include a shower. I'm happy to finally get into the shower when nap time arrives around 1 pm. Yes, that is a long time to be sweaty nasty when I workout at 8:30/9AM!!!

I feel like a rabbit.....

This week we had a veggie challenge. Our bodies had caught up with what we've been doing and figured a new way to hold onto the weight. Many of us saw little or no weight loss in the two weeks following the 1-month weigh in. I was sick, so I actually didn't participate in the "surprise" weigh-in, but I don't see as much movement on my scale either.

The challenge is simple...eat a BIG helping of vegetables and a small (3-4oz) portion of lean protein (turkey, chicken, eggs. etc.) for each meal.

This is difficult for me and others because a lot of veggies need to be prepared and aren't "grab-n-go" like their fruit counter-parts. As I munched on my carrots, I felt like a rabbit. I'm not a big fan of this type of dieting, simply because it is unrealistic long-term for me to eat this way.

But, as the trainers said, it is only for a week, and I'm giving it a go! My calorie count has really gone down to closer to 1000 calories in a day. It makes me really hungry, but I press on.

I tried baking my sweet potato last night, but I think I prefer to make strips and bake them like that instead. The stringy texture really threw me off.

So if you are starting to see a plateau in your weight loss, try something different-even if it is just for a week. I've already seen some good results, loosing 1 1/2 lbs in 2 days!

Running, my knees and new shoes!

I've been meaning to blog about my running. About a month into the program, we started to add running into our workouts. For those of you that know me, know that I HATE RUNNING! But the bottom line is that running is probably the best full body workout out there! I have bad knees and had ACL reconstructive surgery on my right knee in 1993. Since then, my knee has performed wonderfully. Now it seems like my left knee is the problem. I started having pains in my knee and stiffness before I started the workout program. I wondered if it were arthritis? I talked with a friend's husband, who is a orthopedic resident, and he seems to think that strength training, icing (not the frosting type-real ice) and ante-inflammatory meds would help. So, I push on with the pain.

We ran a timed mile on Feb. 4th. My time was 10:58. Not too bad considering that I did have to walk during parts. We hope to improve this time before the end of the contest.

The next day, Feb. 5th, I ran/walked the Climb for Cancer 5K. My time was a respectable 40:47. And I'm happy to report that I came in 9th place in my age division (out of 11) :) :) At least I wasn't last!

Since the running started, I've been having really sore knees (both). After talking with Dan at Sweat Life, he recommend that I visit The Gainesville Running/Walking Store in Tioga Town Center. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it sooner, but my shoes might be the problem. I wasn't sure how old they were, but I know that I hadn't really used them for any type of running since I owned them. When I visited the store, I found out that my shoes were 3 years old. A typical running shoe should only last around 6 months.....ooops! So he looked at the tread on my shoes, observed my stride, and fitted me for a new pair of Brooks running shoes.

I tested the new shoes out the next day on the elliptical machine and then again the next day on the treadmill. It is amazing how much better my knees feel. While I'm not totally pain free, the results really remind me that I need to have a good pair of shoes that are supporting my arches because arches tend to roll in without the appropriate support.

So, I advise everyone who is running to go to the Gainesville Running Store and get yourself properly fitted for the right pair of shoes for you. Everyone is different!!!!

The pain is still in my left knee and I'm still icing and doing the cold plunge at GHFC when I can to help with the inflammation. The next step is the Dr. and I'm trying to avoid that if possible. I'll keep you updated!

13 lbs....see ya later!

Our one-month weigh-in was this morning and to my surprise, I had lost 13 lbs!!! This is a surprise because according to my scale at home, I had only lost 10. Both of which are above my 8 lbs goal, so I'm excited. And since we are doing these physio graph (not sure of the correct spelling) reports, it tells me that I actually lost 14 lbs. of fat and gained 1 lb of muscle!! Awesome!

I'm so excited about these results! I think it is only going to get better though, because starting this week we are going to have homework. Who knows what it will be, but I'm sure it will only help our journey.

The other great news is that the other 3 girls that weighed in this morning also made their goals!!! Way to go team Sweat Life!!!!

My favorite ~300 calorie meals

As promised, here is a list of my favorite ~300 calorie meals:

Medium size banana with 1 T of peanut butter ~200 cals
and
1 hard boiled egg (large) ~77 cals
and
6 large strawberries ~32 cals

Special K fruit & yogurt cereal (1 1/2 cups) w/ 1 cup of skim milk ~331 cals
(I eat this almost every morning for breakfast because I love the quick easy convenience of cereal)

Trail Mix (with almonds, cashews, dark chocolate, raisins, & dried bananas) ~350 cals
(I made this myself with unsalted, raw nuts-portion control is key to calories)

English Muffin with 2 T of peanut butter ~288 cals
and
30 blueberries~ 23 cals

Fage 2% Greek Yogurt with strawberry (or other fruit-inside cup)~130 cals
and
2 Mini Babybel Cheese ~ 140 cals

60 blueberries ~46 cals
and
Toasted English muffin with 2 slices melted 2% American cheese ~240 cals

1 medium size apple w/ 1T peanut butter ~180 cals
and
1 Mozzarella string cheese part skim ~ 80 cals
and
handful (8) raw unsalted almonds ~55 cals

I eat a variety of low fat things for dinner. I cook a meal and then try to figure out what portion size will fit into my 300 cal limit. Because I eat a snack around 3/4 PM, I'm really not overly hungry at dinner and a small portion usually satisfies me.

I do have chocolate cravings and I satisfy that with M&Ms. 15 M&Ms is ~65 cals

I'm also trying to drink 10-12 8oz glasses of water a day. The only other liquid I drink that has calories is my coffee with creamer. I limit that to one cup with 2T of creamer.

I hope this helps you with your goals of eating better and become healthier!! If you have a good snack that you think I'd like, please pass it on. I'd love to add some new things to my list!

It was bound to happen.....

I left the house yesterday without my morning snack and I was running errands. I didn't even realize that I hadn't eaten a snack until around 11:30. Then by 12, I was really hungry. I was driving around trying to think of the best option and I was blank. Then I realized I was near the Chick-fil-a. Baby J was asleep in the car and the drive-thru seemed like the best option for me at the time. I will say that I did resist the ads trying to get me to buy one of their delicious milkshakes. But I did get the chicken salad sandwich with fries and a lemonade. I love Chick-fil-a lemonade. Considering that I had gone almost a month without their lemonade, I think that is pretty good. But the empty calories were not what I needed.

I think that my stomach might be a little smaller (or at least I hope) because I couldn't even finish all of the sandwich (I did choose the healthier chicken salad on whole grain bread). Maybe my stomach is getting used to the smaller meals!! I hope so :)

I will say that the "junk" made me feel icky that afternoon and I got a bit of a headache after my workout, possibly from the fact that my body was getting rid of the junk that I had put into it earlier that day?????

Speaking of workout.....the trainers are now pushing us to our limits. They have had a month to watch and learn what we are capable of and they now make sure we are taking maximum advantage of all our workouts. If we are not going as fast as they think we should, they will let us know to step it up. If we aren't using as much weight as we should, they will bump us up. They easy days of training are over and now we're in for some workouts that might be outside of our comfort zone. I'm up for the challenge and hope all my fellow contestants are too!!

Saturdays-Fun Days!

Saturday we all got together for our morning workout. This week, we took a field trip to Kanapaha Park. It was a bit cold, but the wind was worse. But we took it all in stride as we tromped back and forth on the soccer field. It felt good to be in the sunshine and the cold & wind quickly disappeared. They worked us out hard and pushed us to our limits. Although there were times when I wanted to stop, I pushed on to the finish, giving it my all. As I continue to think about the contest, I am realizing that I have already won. There are lots of people who would LOVE to be in my place. Getting the expert advise & training is priceless. Thank you again to Dan, Meghan & Caitlyn for all of their dedication to our training.

My new way of eating is getting easier. I made a homemade trail mix. It is perfect to grab on the go when I am in a rush and need to take a meal. I'm also getting used to Greek Yogurt. Its really good and good for me. I'm going to post a list of my 320 cal meals if you're interested in getting ideas. I sometimes let the day get away from me and realized that I haven't eaten at my 3 hour mark. My stomach usually reminds me. I also try to prepare things on Sunday for the week. I did my trail mix, boiled some eggs and cut some fruit. I'm also trying to keep myself from feeling deprived. We have regular pizza/movie nights on Fridays. Pizza isn't really healthy, but its good and watching my family chow down isn't really fun. So, I checked on the calorie count and a slice of pepperoni pizza from Dominos and it is 324 calories. So, I eat one piece and call it a night! I allow myself anything, but I just make sure to keep the portion in check.

We didn't have an official weigh-in this week, but I weighed myself and home to find that I have lost 4 more lbs! This is great news because just this week, they gave me a goal of 8 lbs lost in the first month. Our first month-end weigh in is Feb. 5th and I'm over half way to my goal!

New Way of Thinking About Eating

This morning I had my one-on-one session with Dan from Sweat Life Fitness (which turned into a 3 on 1 since Julia & Drew had to come with me!). He went over the basics of how the body burns energy (calories). He told me about how these low cal diets and such work by starving the body. But once you go back to a normal diet, the body moves into fat storing mode and thus you gain weight back. The best method, is to feed your body what it needs to run and then workout to burn the excess of what you eat. So, I need to burn at least 500 calories a day more than I eat in order to get a 1 lb weekly weight loss (7x500=3500 cal=1 lb). It is not too motivating to see only 1 lb gone off the scale, but along with the other activities of taking care of the kids and other things that aren't considered "exercise," I should lose more like 2 lbs a week. This is what most people consider a healthy amount to lose per week.

So, I'm starting this journey with a new approach-you can't starve your body. In order to make this a permanent change, slow and steady wins the race. Although I would love to see all of this weight gone in 3 months, it might realisticly take 6 months.

My goal is to only eat 320 calories per meal, 5 times a day. The reason is because the liver can't hold more than that amount of "energy" at one time. When you eat more and don't burn it off, it stores as fat. This will keep my body happy and keep any fat from accumulating!

Of course, these 320 calories should be equal size of protein & carbs and some good fat. So I also have to plan for a well balanced meal. This is getting easier as I find more foods I enjoy. I like nuts, so they are a good source of protein and fruit is always a good carb! The key is portion control and making sure I get something down every 3 hours....which isn't always easy as I chase around 3 kids!!!

Week Two - No more Mrs. Nice Gal

Ok, so I started off this week trying to figure out how to incorporate more cardio workouts into my off days from training. As a member of GHFC, they watch my kids for me while I work out and that is a bonus! Time away to myself and a workout...what could be better! But my plan came to a halt when my middle child started running a fever on Monday. I couldn't take him to the gym and spread the germs and it was raining outside???? What to do??? So I search my house up and down for my old Tae-Bo workout VCR tape, only to find that I tossed it years ago! Plan B: as the little two woke from their naps, there was a clearing in the weather, so I threw two in the BOB jogger (I LOVE THIS THING) and my oldest rode his scooter. We headed over to Jonesville park, only two blocks from my house. We took two trips around the trail, which is such a great new area, but I do feel like someone might jump out on me when I'm in the back part since it is wooded and no one would even see if someone was trying to kill me! But I forged on and we made it around twice before the sprinkles of rain started coming down. My kids loved it and I felt like I got a workout in!

Today, I was also stuck home with a sick child, so I tuned into Fit TV and did two 20-min cardio workouts. It was fun to do it at home and the time flew by! We also had our big workout tonight with the trainers. They are getting tougher on us and push us when the exercises look like they are too easy. But I like to push myself, so BRING IT!

First week down!

Today finished off our first week of training. Saturdays are the only days that all 7 of us will workout together. It is also weigh-in day. I did OK, 1.25 lbs. down. But the competetive side came out in me when I learned that some lost 4 & 3 lbs.....urrggg! The entire workout I had to look around to see what everyone else was doing to make sure I was stepping it up! I didn't do well at my food intake this week (see CVS sabotage post). So I was very excited to do our "field trip" to Publix to go through the aisles and see what foods we should/shouldn't eat! Most of it wasn't new to me, but although I knew that certain things were bad for me, it didn't stop me from eating them. The basics of what we learned is to shop the outside aisles of the supermarket and stay away from all the processed foods in the middle...as much as possible! Half of my cart should be made up from the produce section! Yikes! This is going to be hard for me mainly because I am so cost conscience of our grocery bill and now I'm going to have to shop in the more expensive areas of the store. The workout part is easy...because you just show up and they tell you want to do. The real competition is going to come down to who does better with their diet and I need to step that up. Pizza night last night was not the best thing for my plan, but I did limit myself to only one slice so that I wasn't depriving myself. I need to plan ahead better, have some new healthy snacks ready and plan healthy dinners and I should be able to do this! Ready, set, gooooooooooo!

CVS is already trying to Sabotage Me

OK, so if you know me well, you know that I've been on this coupon kick for the past 18 months. I'm determined to get the best deals in town! So I know how to scan a store to look for the "deals"! I had to go to CVS on my way home both Tuesday & today because I ordered some pictures. Of course they weren't in on Tuesday so I had to come back today.

What is staring at me when I check out....the candy bar section. And on top of that, when I scan my CVS card, it spits out coupons for candy bars. So, they have a sale that made the candy bar free and you earned $0.50 when you used the coupon. And on top of that, it was my favorite chocolate....Dove! So, in my usual style, I said to myself that I "earn" it by working out and got my free candy bar. Not too bad, but 200 calories that I didn't need!

Today, just hit the repeat button and know tht I didn't need that chocolate.

I won't be stopping by CVS on my way home anymore!!!!

Days 1 & 2

OK, so most of you know now that I've been selected to participate in a contest for Giggle Magazzine (www.gigglemag.com) with Sweat Life Fitness (www.sweatlifefitness.com). I am one of 7 moms in Gainesville selected. I think we might have been the only people brave enough to put ourselves out there for all of Gainesville to see. Because when you agree to participate, you agree to let yourself be out there for everyone to see. That is the part that frightened me! I think it is because I'm in total denial of how bad off I am after having 3 kids. I call it my baby weight, but when it has been on me for 5 years (after my first born), I'm not sure I can blame it on the kids!

We began on Saturday, Jan. 8th with our weigh-in and measurements. We were all horrified by our numbers, especially since they took them in cm and not inch. We met our trainers, Dan Griffin (owner), Megan Merkle and Intern (I'll let you know when she has worked hard enough to be called by her first name). They began slowly and I had a ton of questions for them about what all I can do.....now! I'm not used to doing things slowing, but they want to ease us all into this lifestyle change. On my way to the weigh-in a song by Usher came on the radio: More Here is a line: "Gonna push it to the limit, give it more". I declared that this will be my motivational workout song to get me pumped up to workout more....get off the couch more....lose more!!!! Listen to it, turn it up, get motivated too!

Tuesday I was excited about our first workout. I chose to work out at the 7:30 PM time so I could go after Chris got off work. I wasn't sure what to expect but all I had to do was watch 5 minutes of the Biggest Loser and I knew I was in for an intense workout and a reality check on how out of shape I have become. But Megan & Intern eased us into the workout slow. We were learning proper form and how to do the exercies correctly. Since I've been an athlete for most of my life, I've been pretty well schooled on the basics of form and style. I know how to do a proper squat/sit up/push up. But it's always good to get a refresher course! We did 3 circuits along with a warm up and cool down and I was suprised when it was over and I wasn't too exhausted. But I was sure I would be sore the next day!

To my surprise, I wasn't very sore the next day. I was planning on taking the day off and exercising my rest period (a time that the trainers say is very important) but my friend A. called me at 8:30AM to ask me to meet her at the gym. She is motivated by me being in this program and is determined to help me and help herself along the way. We did a low cardio class and then an abs/glutes class (which was way harder!). But the rest of the day my body was in overdrive. I felt hungry all day. I tried to obey the eating rules they had gone over at the first meeting (trying to stick to eating only 300 calories at a time) but my body was hungry. For the rest of the day my body could not get satisfied. I tried drinking lots of water to fill up my hungry stomach, but that didn't work. I feel like I probably ate more that day and it probably negated the calories I burned during the workout! This has always been a problem that I'm hoping to learn how to curve. I feel like "hey I worked out, I can eat this...." and thus I end up eating to negate the workout. I'll let you know if I figure out how to curve this hunger!

Today, I woke up very sore. Especially in my quads where I really felt the burn! But I drank lots of water an hydrated for my workout. I also need to figure out how to curb that mid afternoon snack crave. Today it was skittles, which isn't normal, but I found some that I had bought after halloween and planned on putting them in the pinata for my son's party, but we didn't do the pinata and thus they were calling my name. I also ate a full meal at 6PM right before my 7:30PM workout. Not really the smartest thing to do, but I didn't want to eat at 9PM after the workout. After the first circuit, I felt the food in my stomach and it wasn't feeling good! But I pushed through it! Today's circuit was much harder than the first. They stepped us up. Added 10lb weights to a few of the exercises and shortened the break in between. I felt good afterwards. I will be sore tomorrow! But I'm looking forward to Saturday when we'll head to Publix after the workout and learn how to shop for better food!