Weigh-in #1

Today was the first official weigh-in of my New Years Weight Loss bootcamp. Annnnnndd.......I stayed the same. :( Wasn't entirely unexpected, as I had a girls night last night at a mexican restaurant and ate a lot more chips than I should have. It was unexpected and a last minute decision, so I really didn't have a chance to plan for it. But thats ok--today starts a new week, and a renewed dedication to the cause! I decided to evaluate my progress by seeing what I did right this week and what I did wrong.

 Did Right 
1. Drank more water
2. Tracked my points every day using my phone app
3. Did the Shrinking Jeans fitness calendar workout and a Bye Bye Jiggly Arms workout every day.

 Did Wrong
1. Didn't track the M&Ms I would casually sneak between meals. (Hey, one here and one there really add up!)
2. Had a second helping of some very delicious chili on Monday. (Its homemade, people, by GRANDMA. Who doesn't want a second helping?!)
3. Only did one day of my 20 minute full body workout, when I was meaning to do at least 3. 4. Tracked the pizza I ate for supper Saturday, did not track the oh-so-delicious Parmesan bread bites that accompanied that pizza. (beware folks, this are deadly!! lol)

So now I know what I need to work on. Have a bunch of new recipes I want to try out this week, including a bunch I found on www.emilybites.com. This blog is fantastic--she includeds WW points and nutrition info on all of her recipes, and they are recipes that use "normal" ingredients--no weird substitutions or ingredients that you have to trek all over town to find. Her biggest asset is portion control--she has several individual meals, or "cupcakes" as she calls them. Check it out!

Still going...

Day 2 of my weight loss relaunch, and I think I've done pretty good. Got in lots of water (and was in the bathroom 1000 times), stuck to my points (with one tiny one added to my weekly total), and even exercised some! I'm big on the HIIT workouts right now, mainly because they DON'T TAKE LONG. Granted, my "high intensity" is really more moderate intensity, but I'll work up to it! This workout involved body weight exercises--pushups, squats, etc. The only equipment required was a chair, for tricep dips and this exercise where you step up on to the chair and back down. Discovered the fitness timer app I downloaded is OK, but not great. It doesn't put in my 10 seconds of rest in between each exercise. I had to keep pausing. So I found a new one, and will try that out tomorrow.

Here's to hoping tomorrow goes as well as today!

Back in the Saddle

I've decided to give blogging a try again. This time I promise to be more consistent. Along with my blog, I have started a new weight loss challenge over at the Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans site, the Weight Loss Bootcamp. This challenge runs for eight weeks, so I've got my work cut out for me! Week 1 challenge was to create your plan. I started off with my New Year's Resolutions: to work out at least 3 times a week (but 5 would be better), to continue with Weight Watchers and track my points better, and to hit 180 lbs (as of today I have 18.2 to go). Not putting any sort of time limit on that since that never seems to help any.

So how am I going to accomplish these goals? Well first of all I got 2 great apps for my iphone. One is My Fitness Pal. Its a food and exercise tracker. You can either search for the foods in their database OR just scan the barcode on the package and it will do it for you! Amazing. The only thing I don't like about this app is that in the nutritional info it doesn't automatically list protein. For anyone who does Weight Watchers, protein is one of the 4 things that helps determine points. So I have to dig a little deeper to use this app to help with points. But its great for keeping track of what I've eaten. The 2nd app I installed was a fitness tracker that allows me to put in my exercises along with the time for each. So, for example, if I am doing a HIIT routine with 12 exercises for 30 seconds each, with 10 seconds of rest in between, I just put all that info into the app and it tells me when to switch exercises. This way I don't have to worry about resetting a timer ever 30 seconds. Haven't tried it yet, but anxious to do so!

That's it for today. Gotta go get my workouts in!