One year anniversary!

It was in December of 2010 that I set out on a new path of health and fitness, and decided to share with you along the way. I'm very proud of myself and how far I've come. There is only one goal I had hoped to achieve this year that I will for sure have to do in 2012 and that was run my first 1/2 marathon. There have been triumphs and trials along the way this past year but no bad could ever outway the good that has come from this. In the past year I've lost over 20lbs, dropped several sizes and have maintained a size 4 for about 5 months now. And as for this blog, I never cared if anyone even read a single post, I knew it would still be a way to log my progress and vent my frustrations, but I like to think that some good came from this blog this past year also. It's made me glad to know that my honesty  has been an example and encouraging to others. I've had people come to me for advice, ask my opinion, and look for ways to better themselves.
I decided to invest in myself this past year in a way I never have before and the return has been nothing less than great. I like to think I have truly changed for the better, a year later and I could never picture myself going backwards or letting go of this new love I have.
As the new year approaches I know many people are setting fitness goals. Instead of your goal being to lose "x" amount of pounds, let it be to not give up when it's too hard or no fun. To not make lame excuses. And to not give up on yourself!

Then...wowza! lol



Now!



Follow up to yesterdays blog...

So yesterday I gave you the run down of a day in the life. Again today I had plans to be up at 4am but I must confess I slept through my alarm. You see I HAD to stay up and watch American Horror Story, and then woke up a million times during the night so I'm not surprised I didn't want to get up after only about 5 hours of sleep. BUT, where there's a will there's a way, right?? So as soon as Steve and the kids were out the door this morning I put on my sneakers, grabbed Chloe's leash and we went for a quick 30 min run. Better than nothing right? It was only 28 degrees, but that's what Under Armour is for!

neither of us look thrilled, but it was a good run!

In other news, someone passed along a link to a new fad diet to me today. Some bogus 13 day lose 10lbs crap. A crash diet that pretty much consists of not eating. It's not a diet, it's an eating disorder. I wasn't really sure how to take it, I mean is this person telling me I need to lose 10 lbs? Are they aware that I bust my ass in the gym and could never eat this little, nor do I ever want to...

Here's the "diet":

13 Day Danish Diet Menu

1st Day

1. Breakfast: Coffee with a single cube of sugar (either brown/white)
2. Lunch: 400g of spinach (cooked), coupled with two hard-boiled eggs and a tomato
3. Dinner: 200g steak (any kind, grilled), with green salad, lemon juice and oil (dressing)

2nd Day

1. Breakfast: Coffee with single cube of sugar (either brown/white)
2. Lunch: 250g of ham with 1 cup of yogurt
3. Dinner: 200g of beef (roast) with green salad, lemon juice and oil (dressing)

3rd Day

1. Breakfast: Coffee with a single cube of sugar (either brown/white) and a slice of plain toast
2. Lunch: 1 slice of ham, with 1 cup of lettuce and 2 hard-boiled eggs
3. Dinner: 1 tomato, with 1 piece of celery (boiled) and 1 piece of fruit (your choice)

4th Day

1. Breakfast: Coffee with a single cube of sugar (either brown/white) and a slice of plain toast
2. Lunch: 200ml of any fruit juice (freshly squeezed or all natural) with 1 cup of yogurt
3. Dinner: 250g of fruit (assorted bowl) with 1 hard-boiled egg and a carrot

5th Day

1. Breakfast: 1 carrot with lemon juice
2. Lunch: 200g of cod (boiled) with lemon juice
3. Dinner: 200g of beef (roast), with butter and celery (1 piece)

6th Day

1. Breakfast: Coffee with a single cube of sugar (either brown/white) and a slice of plain toast
2. Lunch: 2 eggs (cooked the way you like it) with a carrot
3. Dinner: ½ a chicken (boiled) with green salad, lemon juice and oil (dressing)

7th Day

1. Breakfast: Tea
2. Lunch: Water
3. Dinner: 200g of lamb (grilled) with one apple

8th Day

1. Breakfast: Coffee with a single cube of sugar (either brown/white)
2. Lunch: 400g of spinach (cooked, coupled with two hard-boiled eggs and a tomato
3. Dinner: 200g of beef (roast) with green salad, lemon juice and oil (dressing)

9th Day

1. Breakfast: Coffee with a single cube of sugar (either brown/white)
2. Lunch: 200g of ham with 1 cup of yogurt
3. Dinner: 200g of beef (roast) with green salad, lemon juice and oil (dressing)

10th Day

1. Breakfast: Coffee with a single cube of sugar (either brown/white) with a plain slice of toast
2. Lunch: 1 slice of ham with a cup of lettuce and two hard-boiled eggs
3. Dinner: 1 tomato, with 1 piece of celery (boiled) and 1 piece of fruit (your choice)

11th Day

1. Breakfast: Coffee with a single cube of sugar (either brown/white) with a plain slice of toast
2. Lunch: 200 ml of fruit juice (freshly squeezed or all natural) with 1 cup of yogurt
3. Dinner: 250g of fruit (assorted bowl) with 1 boiled egg and carrot shavings (1 piece)

12th Day

1. Breakfast: 1 carrot with lemon juice
2. Lunch: 200g of cod (boiled) with lemon juice
3. Dinner: 200g of beef (roast) with celery and butter (low-fat)

13th Day

1. Breakfast: Coffee with a single cube of sugar (either brown/white) with a plain slice of toast
2. Lunch: 2 eggs (cooked the way you like it) with carrot shavings (single piece)
3. Dinner: ½ a chicken (boiled) with green salad, lemon juice and oil (dressing)

Looks healthy right? That weight loss will totally last...
Come on people!

Where there's a will, there's a way...

Let me be blunt...
"Excuses are like assholes. Everybody's got one!"

It's true, we all have excuses for all the things we either don't want to do or aren't willing to make a priority. I do it all the time with my school work or any other mundane task that doesn't interest me.
But one thing is for sure, when it comes to health and fitness people are full of excuses, and one seems to be more popular than the rest...I don't have time. I get it, we're all busy. Kids, work, school, commuting, laundry, dinner, homework, the list goes on and on. We make time for what is most important to us. I have chosen to make fitness a part of my everyday life, it's important to me. But that doesn't mean it gets moved to the top of the totem pole, because there are plenty of things of higher importance in my everyday life.
So many people want to be fit, and healthy and thin, but aren't willing to really be serious about it. Instead they think of an excuse. Honey, those arms aren't going to magically tone themselves.
I know what you're thinking, "Oh yeah easy for you to say Sheri, you've got time." Ok then, lets take a walk in my shoes, I'll break down yesterday for you...

6am- make lunches/pack snacks
630am- shower/get ready for work
730am- get kids up, dressed, and ready for school
8am- kids breakfast
9am-5:40pm - work
6pm - walk in the door and start dinner
7pm - dishes/clean up, makes steve's lunch for following day, get kids out of the bath/jammies on
8pm - sit my but down for 30 min
830pm- put kids to bed/attempt to work on my paper while watching SOA finale
930pm - goodnight world!

So when did I work out? Yesterday my alarm went off at 4am and I was at the gym by 430, back home by 6 in time for Steve to leave. My day was packed, but I made my fitness a priority. There was no way I was going to let it interfere with time with the kids, or stuff at home so I got my butt up EARLY and I did it again today too and tonight I have class right after work, until 9. Where there's a will, there's a way.
BTW, Steve's day was just as crazy and he made it work too, squeezed in a workout on his lunch break even though it meant he had to rush. It can be done.

leg press 225 lbs RAWR! lol

A dinner favorite made clean :-)

I was craving one of my favorite things my grandma always made me, tostadas! But traditional tostadas aren't exactly clean. So I bought some fiber/flax whole grain corn tortillas, got them crispy on the stove with some olive oil spray, topped with mashed black beans (instead of refried pinto beans), shredded chicken, and tomato slices. I had steamed veggies on the side instead of the Spanish rice I would have had in the past. This is definitely gonna get added to the dinner rotation, it was yummy and hit the spot.

mirror mirror on the wall

Today was arms, well I made today arm day after cheating on the gym earlier this week with my bed. While I was in the middle of my barbell curls I stared at my reflection in the mirror and thought to myself, "who is this girl?" In the gym at 530am doing barbell curls and skullcrushers, rocking a hot pink size small tank, defined arms and a not so round face. After my set I couldn't help but just stand by the mirror and check myself out. Not in a damn i'm hot let me flex sort of way, but just in awe of what I saw. I felt confident as I looked at myself, this was not the same girl I saw in the mirror 10 months ago. Instead of making changes and bringing confidence upon myself that girl was trying to hide what she didn't like. She was ignoring the fact that a big change needed to be made and that it was going to be a tough task. But holy smokes, what started out as a couple laps around the block to get my crazy dog some exercise, has turned into a major part of my life. We're talking life changing.

Now i'm not by any means perfect, I have days that my diet/food is not on point, I skip out on the gym to get some extra sleep, but what doesn't ever lack is my desire. My desire to continue on this journey I set out on back in January. If one day isn't 100% well then that just means I'm gonna wake up the next day and try my best all over again. That's what it's all about. When I looked in the mirror today I felt really confident about what I saw and that's a pretty great thing. And then I looked over and saw some guy and girl making out. Really people?! 530am, at the gym? haha.

Freaks come out at night

Last nights gym experience truly deserves a blog entry. That's all I could think the whole time I was there...I've got to write about this.
Ok so where do I even start, let me back up a little bit. The weekend was busy, especially Sunday. A hot afternoon at the pumpkin patch, followed by costume/decoration shopping, and lastly pumpkin decorating. I was asleep on the couch by 9. When my alarm went off at 5am Monday morning I knew there was no way I was getting up, I needed a morning to sleep in. I had been looking forward to Monday's arm workout tho (I know I'm a nerd) so I decided I wouldn't miss the day entirely, I would just go after work. Now I am well aware that 5pm is not only rush hour on I-80 but also in the gym, but I figured one pm session wouldn't kill me.
Fromt the moment I walked in the door it was total and complete chaos, there were people everywhere! Thank goodness I had no intentions of doing cardio, because every machine was taken. I made my way upstairs to the weights, I had never seen so many people up there before. Sheesh, over to the free weights I go, stood around waiting for someone to give up a bench, claimed it with my water bottle before I went over to find out what weights I could scrounge up. I will say this, the only good thing to this session was that I was the ONLY female lifting, so I never had to wait for the 20lb or 15lb weights, the guys around me were lifting MUCH heavier. Much heavier, with sound effects, slamming weights and all. While I rested between sets I would just people watch. Man it was like a gym scene from a movie. I felt so out of place. Not because I can't hold my own, trust me I know what I'm doing, but I missed my am regulars. When I go in the morning it's an older crowd 50's 60's and the people there before work, It's calm its relaxed, it flows.
I felt like I was hoarding equipment last night. Like I was some little scavenger running around grabbing what I could when it was free. Running over to the cable machine as soon as someone walked away, claiming benches with my shaker bottle. It was like a mad dash around the gym to make sure I got in my full workout. I couldn't help but laugh to myself becuase I seemed to be the only one concerened with doing my workout in order and just getting the heck out of there.
In between sets of grunting, everyone else just stood around and talked, and these were not converastions I needed to be a part of. Men in a gym, you know what they were talking about. Jeez talk about akward. Haha. And this totally could just be in my head, but I could picture these guys looking at me taking up precious space in an already crowded gym and thinking, "what does this girl think she's doing, get down to the elliptical where you belong." haha.
Well they couldn't get rid of me, I stuck it out and got through my whole workout, and I don't think I'll ever substitute a pm workout for a missed am one. It was so nice to be back in there this morning with my regular. I don't know how those pm people do it, it's a jungle out there.
And in case your wondering here's what I did last night (It kicked my butt, my arms are DEAD today):

Arms/Abs

• 

  Narrow Pushups

  4 sets of 15 reps
• 

  Seated Triceps Press

  4 sets of 8 reps

Superset:

• 

  Cable One Arm Tricep Extension

  3 sets of 8 reps
• 

  One-Arm Reverse Grip Triceps Pushdown (shown with two hands)

  3 sets of 8 reps

Superset:

• 

  Skullcrushers

  3 sets of 8 reps
• 

  Close-Grip Barbell Bench Press

  3 sets of 8 reps

End of superset; resume normal sets

• 

  Incline Dumbbell Curl

  4 sets of 8 reps
• 

  Dumbbell Alternate Bicep Curl

  4 sets of 8 reps
• 

  Barbell Curl 21's

  2 sets of 21 reps
• 

  Stability Ball Crunch

  3 sets of 25 reps
• 

  Jackknife Sit-Up Holding Stability Ball

  3 sets of 15 reps
  Perform normally with ball held overhead
• 

  Stability Ball Reverse Crunches (ball between feet)

  3 sets of 15 reps

Just a little photo update

So I haven't uploaded any pics of myself lately and I was feeling vain at the gym this morning so here's what I look like at 5:45am. Starting to see some progress from all this weight training I'm doing...

I'm getting there

about to kill some wide stance squats!

Getting my butt kicked...

So yesterday marked the start of week 5 and Phase 2 for me in Jamie Eason's live fit trainer which means I'm back to doing cardio! Yay! And without fail phase 2 is bringing new challenges for me. I'm pretty sure I've already said before that this program is pushing me out of my comfort zone because I'm doing exercises I've been too intimidated to try in the past. But I really want to push my body and get the most out of this program so I've been sucking it up and lifting with the big boys the past few weeks.
Today however was a big step for me, in my mind anyways. The workouts change a bit with each phase and I was liking the chest workout in phase 1. I've never really worked chest much (for obvious reasons lol) but the exercises Jamie has in phase 1 aren't too scary. Oh boy but what's this, today you want me doing barbell bench press? Whoa, I don't think I've ever dared to wander over by those benches with racks and grunting men. "Hmmm maybe I'll just do my normal dumbell bench press." No way! Had I chickened out and done the dumbell bench press that I was used to I would have been mad with myself when I left the gym. So I sucked it up, picked a bench far away from everyone, unloaded the ridiculous amount of weight that was on the barbell and got to work. By my second set I was getting the hang of it and it wasn't so scary anymore.
And boy oh boy did this workout kick my butt, I was sweating before I even did my cardio. Oh and cardio, man I missed it, nothing like walking out of the gym lookin like a hot sweaty mess.
"I am Hans." "Und I am Franz." "Und ve just vant to pump... (clap) ...YOU UP!"

Here's what I did today:

Chest/Abs

• 

  Wide-Grip Barbell Bench Press

  5 sets of 8 reps
  (1 warm-up set, 3 reg sets, 1 set of negatives)
• 

  Pushups (Close and Wide Hand Positions)

  3 sets of 15 reps
• 

  Cable Crossover

  3 sets of 10 reps
• 

  Smith Machine Incline Bench Press

  3 sets of 10 reps
• 

  Side-to-Side Pushups

  3 sets of 10 reps

Superset:

• 

  Toe Touchers

  3 sets of 20 reps
• 

  Crunches

  3 sets of 20 reps
  (legs straight in the air)

End of superset; resume normal sets

• 

  Knee/Hip Raise On Parallel Bars

  3 sets of 10 reps
• 

  Cable Crunch

  3 sets of 10 reps
• 

  Elliptical Trainer

  30 min medium intensity
  (running, elliptical, step-mill)