Gym Rat

Today we started something new. My kids started evening swim lessons. This is normally when I go to the gym and my husband plays with the kids while I'm gone. When I offered the suggestion of having then go to swimming lessons they were excited to have something cool to do in the super hot summer evenings.  John suggested that they drop me off and pick me up from the gym which sounded great until I realized that would mean I was going to spend 2 HOURS at the gym. TWO HOURS PEOPLE.  I usually do a teensy bit over an hour so I was a little overwhelmed at the idea of doubling that. At the same time, I've been wanting to spend more time lifting weights and this set up means I am forced to exercise longer. So I went for it.

I upped my treadmill jog/walk to 55 minutes (plus a 5 minute cool down).  Then I jumped on an elliptical machine with the plan of doing 30 minutes but only lasted 100 calories worth (about 9 minutes). It was the machine I didn't like. After that I did 30 minutes of weights working on my legs, and 15 minutes of ab work. Then my happy kids and cooled off husband came to pick me up. It was great! I burned 626 calories (not counting the weight lifting) and felt wonderful afterwards.

So for the next two weeks I will be a gym rat. We'll see how doubling my exercise time affects my weight loss.

Here are my results for the day:
Eating: 1860 calories
Exercise: 60 minutes on the treadmill (518 calories, 3.65 miles, 16:24 pace 132 hr). Elliptical (.64 miles, 108 calories) 30 minutes weight lifting legs, 15 minutes ab work.

How was your day?

Halfway done and 15 pounds!

We're back from a restorative weekend of camping, nothing like hanging out in the beautiful outdoors to relax you. It was such fun!

I was also so excited to see I am in first place. Woot woot! When we started this competition I had a goal of being in the top 3 every week, and I it was a thrill to see my name in the top spot for this week.

I've been working hard, and staying consistent and I am down 15 pounds at the halfway mark. I hope to keep going strong through the end of this competition.

Thank you to everyone who is following me, commenting and just supporting me in general. You are great!

I'll be back to the grindstone tomorrow and back with my daily update. Today we did a 2 mile hike, but I didn't keep track of my calories, just chose good food. :)

See you tomorrow!

Didja miss me?

My husband noticed I didn't post yesterday...I was getting ready to post when my daughter woke up screaming.

Guess who was at the gym today?  Yep....backpack boy! Besides some crazy awesome moves, he also did a lot of very noisy grunting.  I thought of what his exercising reminded me of today. Phoebe running on "Friends."   Seriously people. He is crazy, and crazy funny. I have to try really hard not to laugh while watching him. When I run I know I'm not super graceful or anything, but this guy is quite a sight to see. I have to give him props because he works really hard, but I wish I had a super spy camera so you all could see his awesomeness.

Today I did cross training again and tried the bike. Not a fan! It hurt my butt, and my pants kept riding up. I didn't last the 15 minutes I was shooting for. Maybe I'll try the recumbent bike next time?

Yesterday:
Eating: 1900 calories
Exercise: 55 minutes on treadmill (494 calories, 3.32 miles, 3.62 mph, 16:33, 127 hr)

Today:
Eating: 1780 calories
Exercise: 43:02 (367, 2.56 miles, 3.57 mph, 16:48, 128 hr) Bike- 8 minutes, 2+ miles, 50 calories

This weekend we are going camping, I'll be doing some hiking which will be fun and different from the usual! I'll send in my Friday weight again and check in with you on Monday. Have a great weekend!!

Girls gone wild?

Dear sir,
I see you at the gym every day wearing the SAME cut off shirt that says, "Security-Girls gone wild." I think I speak for *most* women when I say if you are trying to attract a lady friend, you may want to try a different shirt...especially if you only have one and are wearing it to the gym every day.

Signed,

A concerned fellow gym go-er

I had a good day at the gym, it felt good to be back on track. I tried to mix it up a little and did 40 minutes on the treadmill and an additional 1.1 miles on the elliptical trainer.  I think I might try to "cross train" every other day so my body doesn't get in a rut.

Eating is not going fabulous...I ate well, but didn't get in my 2400 calories.  I don't want to eat just for the sake of eating, so I'm calling it good but I'm going to try and have five small meals tomorrow.

Here are my stats for day 24...

Eating: 
1899 calories

Exercise: 
40 minutes on treadmill (365 calories, 2.48 miles, 3.69 mph, 16:14 miles, 135 heart rate)
Elliptical-1.1 miles, 110 calories

Today

Today we had fun! I definitely hit my calorie number, not sure exactly how many calories I ate because I ate the following: Movie popcorn, clam chowder, a little less than half of a slice of key lime pie. And, NO EXERCISE. I saw the movie "Knight and Day, " and got to go on a date with my husband, sister, and brother-in-law.

AAAUGGGHHH.

But it sure was fun to hang out with my sister and her family. Tomorrow we'll be back to the grindstone, and I will be consoling two sad kids who aren't being spoiled by their older cousins. :)

Hope your day was fun too. :)

Eating more, losing more??

Here we are starting week 4, the half-way point. I've lost 11 pound total now (7 first week, 2 the following two weeks).   I've been pretty good at keeping close to my calorie goal, and really good about getting to the gym. But last week, after returning from my weekend away (on Monday) I weighed myself and had lost 2 pounds since my Friday weigh-in. Then through the rest of the week I stayed at that weight.  Kind of strange!

One of my followers, Chrissy, has mentioned that she thinks some of the contestants calorie intakes are too low, so I started researching calorie intake.  When I started this contest, I looked up "how many calories to lose weight" and found the bottom limit for weight loss for women to be 1200. More accurately, women should not go below 1200 calories a day.  Since I am always trying to be the hare in the race of course I decided to do the 1200 calorie limit which has been pretty doable. But after Chrissy's concerned comments, a lot of research AND my weight loss stall of last week, I've decided to do something a little counter intuitive (to me!) and raise my calorie intake.  I tried a few different online calculators and have decided to go up to 2400 calories.  That is DOUBLE my previous intake.  Some of the calorie calculators recommended I go up to 2900 calories, but I'm not sure about that big of an increase. I'm not going to eat cupcakes and doritos to double my calories though...I'm going to try to add in more fruits and vegetables and protein.  We'll see how this week's weight loss goes.

That being said, I didn't do great today at doubling those calories. I mentioned that my sister and her family are in town so today we were out and about all day and I just didn't get all those calories in.  I'm somewhere around 1800 calories right now and not feeling super hungry (plus it is late!). Rats. Tomorrow is a new day, I will work harder on getting those calories in (man that sound weird!).

Here are my stats for the day. Wish me luck on this little experiment!

Oh, and I shaved 10 seconds off my 5K time today at the gym....47:00 even! Woohoo!

Eating: 
1800 calories

Exercise: 
51:33
529 calories
3.4 miles
3.96 mph
15:08 pace
141 heart rate.

Day 20 Crazy day!

When will I learn? Yesterday I thought that I only had a *few* things to do to get ready for our guests (my sister, her husband and their four kids).  HA! After some morning errands we spent from 12:30 until 6:30 CLEANING cleaning cleaning! We got done right before they got here, so that was good, but man alive I have got to plan better.

So the bad part is that I 1) didn't go to the gym and 2) didn't eat enough calories.  I had a piece of string cheese for lunch and was so busy the rest of the day I didn't snack or anything.
I did make yummy, yummy kebabs for dinner, so that was delicious but I was really low on the calories today which isn't good.

I know you burn calories cleaning, but I sure missed my workout today! I'll start up fresh on Monday. :)

Happy weekend everyone!

Eating:
910 calories

Exercise:
6 hours of cleaning? ;) (at 200 an hour supposedly.)