Chris Powell

Last weekend, I bumped into Chris Powell. He's the host of ABC's "Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition", a show that I have mixed feelings about but overall like. ;) The one thing that I am certain about with that show is that the trainer guy is ridiculous positive and appears to often get great results.

He was pushing a stroller, so I congratulated him on his new addition - two months old little guy. Adorable. ;) I talked to Chris for a couple minutes, telling him about my own weight loss journey and asking for tips. :D He said his top tip about healthy eating is to "Eat Whole Foods!" - avoid processed foods as much as possible.

It's always refreshing to meet someone who comes across as sincere and friendly on television - and they're exactly like that in person. All the best to Chris and his adorable little boy!

August steps

month	total steps	average steps per day	number of steps ahead/behind of pace
January	295,100	9,519	-14,900
February	209,700	7,489	-85,200
March	228,000	7,355	-167,200
April	183,300	6,110	-283,900
May	421,200	13,587	-176,200
June	339,300	11,310	-136,900
July	322,900	10,416	-124,000
August	512,200	16,523	+78,200

Woo, look at me all caught up on my steps! ;)

However, I've started September with not feeling so great, so my steps this month so far are not so great. (I'm averaging 6,800 so far.) But hey, I'm just aiming for that 10,000 a day, and I could catch up to keep that average for this month. We'll see.

Weight, as usual, is staying the same.

Sunday: 525 calories

Today, in lieu of going to the gym to take a class, I went for an hour-long hike up a steep hill. My lower calf muscles were killing me - so much for thinking those dance workouts were magic. ;) The hike burned 525 calories according to my heart rate monitor - 2/3 of those calories on the way uphill. ;)

Total this week: 7051

GOAL MET!

I don't plan to do this crazy goal again this week since I've got jury duty, but I am hoping to catch at least one class/hour-long-workout every day. :)

YAAAAAAAAY STEPS!!!

OK, so I know I've mentioned this in the past - for the last few years, I've been wearing a pedometer every day and aiming for that elusive 10,000 steps a day (the amount that is generally considered a baseline for good health).

In 2008, I walked 3,748,400 steps - 10,241 average per day.

In 2009, I walked 3,836,700 steps - 10,511 average per day.

In 2010, I walked 3,011,694 steps - 8,251 average per day.

Clearly, I had issues last year. ;) New job, new house, surgery recovery - just a lot of excuses. I did get my butt in gear near the end of the year, but I was averaging less than 60% for the first 8 months, so that was pretty insurmountable.

This year, things were kinda falling into the same bad pattern. Got laid off at the end of March and found myself walking even less, and then thankfully a friend pushed me into going with her to some dance workout classes. And this month, I have pushed things into gear...

month	total steps	average steps per day	number of steps ahead/behind of pace
January	295,100	9,519	-14,900
February	209,700	7,489	-85,200
March	228,000	7,355	-167,200
April	183,300	6,110	-283,900
May	421,200	13,587	-176,200
June	339,300	11,310	-136,900
July	322,900	10,416	-124,000

As of today, I have hit 255,000 steps for the month (that's more in 13 days than I did in the entire individual months of February, March and April!)... and that, my friends, has brought me back up to pace! I'm actually 1,000 steps ahead of pace. ;) I have to hope that the weight will eventually fall into line with all of this working out and walking.

Hooray for catching up to pace. 2,251,000 steps done so far, 1,399,000 to go.

Saturday: 740 calories

Kickass dance workout this morning, but then got distracted into chores and other such fun things. ;) 740 calories during the class.

Total this week: 6526

Friday: 649 calories

Only one dance workout today... 649 calories.

Total this week: 5786

Thursday: 907 calories

Did a dance workout tonight (yep, got picked for jury duty, so this will cut down on my classes next week...), but I did get out for a 45 minute walk during the lunch break. 620 calories in the dance workout, and Sparkpeople says 287 for that walk, so I'll count that (couldn't wear my heart rate monitor through the metal detectors!). 907 for the day.

It's going be tough to wrap up 7000 calories by Sunday, but I'm hoping for a dance workout Friday night, one more Saturday morning, and then a long walk Saturday afternoon, and maybe another dance workout Sunday morning if I can get my stuff together.

Total this week: 5137

Wednesday: 1075 calories

2 more dance workouts today - 492 in one, 583 in the other. 1075 for the day.

I've been summoned for jury duty tomorrow(!), but hopefully I'll still be able to join a dance workout in the evening.

Total this week: 4230 calories

Tuesday: 1100 calories

2 more dance workouts tonight - I'm definitely learning the classes & instructors I like the most. ;) I should've burned a lot more calories, but in the first class, I was too crowded to move a lot, and the second class, I really didn't care for the music or the moves. Ugh! At least I stuck it out?

Total this week: 3155 calories

Monday: 2055 calories

3 dance workouts today - 766, 454 and 835 calories burned (the 835 is my highest for a 60 minute class!) - so we're at 2055 for the week!

I overdid it a little today because I know it'll be a challenge to get a class in each day for the rest of the week - but I'm going to try!

New goal for the week: 7000 calories burned

Trying something different - I'm only weighing myself on Wednesdays (the day I always record my weight, back from the ol' Weight Watchers weigh-ins). So instead of focusing on my weight, I'm focusing on something I can actually impact: exercise. I joined 24 Hour Fitness last week, and made it to several classes.

This week, my goal is to burn 7,000 calories in classes (according to my heart rate monitor). Of course, if you do the basic math, that *should* result in a two pound weight loss, too (3500 calories = 1 pound). I'm going to also go back to tracking what I eat in sparkpeople.com - I'm sure my calories consumed have been out of whack lately.

Today is Monday, and I've gone to two classes this morning already! ;) 766 in one and 454 in another - 1,220 to start! Woo!

Augh!

I'm such a bad blogger - sorry! I have gotten just so very frustrated with my lack of weight loss. I don't want to update the numbers on the side of my blog here, but safe to say, I'm at my highest weight in 4 years. And I'm hosting a weekend-long party at my house in a couple days, so that number will undoubtedly edge higher. This month was tough with a lot of time visiting relatives out of state, which threw off my workouts and of course the food was not-so-healthy.

August is the month of weight loss, right? Ahem.

Still working out - doing Zumba or other dance classes several times a week. Did a great pilates class today and will go to another at that studio next week. Trying to use my weights at home twice a week as well. I need to figure out good leg-muscle-building exercises, too. I plan to join my local 24 Hour Fitness early next month and then spend a lot of time there. ;) Diet is going to get strict again after this weekend.

Hope all of you out in blog-land are doing well. Say hi some time. ;)

Workin' it out

I made twelve days in a row of hitting up Zumba workouts - go me! On day 13, I took a water fitness class instead, and then yesterday I went for a long walk. Today, I hit up a combo Zumba/kickboxing class that was very fast-paced (my heart rate monitor was sky-high).

I'm loving the Zumba classes and such, but my 30-day trial membership is coming to a close. If anyone out there in blogger-land knows of a way to get a discounted membership to Club One, I'd love to hear it! ;) It kills me that it's so much more expensive than all the other local gyms - there's a deal at Costco for 24 Hour Fitness for $12.50 a month! Are you kidding me?! Even Bally's is under $30. Club One is $90. Ouch. I really want to join, but I can't swing that pricing with my unemployment status. Glarghen.

Working out all that much has got to be good, somehow - even though my weight isn't budging. Grrrr. I'm going to try to cut out wheat for the week and see how it helps things.

still keepin' on

Tiny goal #1 was only met for a day. ;) Oy. My weight, why do you hate me! Good news is that today, a week later, I'm only up 0.6 pounds from there - it had been 3 pounds at one point this weekend.

I was indeed ridiculously sore from that weight class last Wednesday - it hurt like hell to move on Thursday... Friday... Saturday... ;) I did make it the "gentle yoga" class on Thursday which was a good stretch, but then I spent a half hour on a treadmill at a steep incline, because apparently I hate myself. I did my zumba/water fitness combo on Friday and that felt good, even though I lumbered through both of those classes with less grace than normal. ;)

Monday, I did zumba, yesterday I did pilates and then zumba, and today, guess what I'll be doing tonight? ;) Zumba! I am digging it. I'm hoping to catch another zumba tomorrow, and then my zumba/water fitness combo on Friday (a full zumba class then I quickly change into my bathing suit and take a water fitness class).

Hopefully the weight will start to come off with all this cardio! ;)

First tiny goal met!

Last week I posted two goals:

First tiny goal: get back to the weight I was on 5/1: 3.8 pounds less than today
Second tiny goal: get back to the weight I was on my birthday: 8.4 pounds less than 5/1

Well, today I hit that first tiny goal! HOORAY! It's just a start (a small little start), but a start nonetheless. I have some weight-loss-challenges coming up this weekend - dinner out on Friday, birthday party on Saturday, another dinner out on Sunday... aie.

Today I slept in pretty late and then dragged myself out to a new-to-me-fitness class:

Club Power is a FULL BODY plate-loaded conditioning class with consistent choreography that is simple and fun combined with energizing music. It is a high intensity group strength-training program that uses 5-minute increments with pre-determined sets and repetitions for each muscle group.

This class completely and thoroughly kicked my butt. I have no clue how I'm going to move any muscles tomorrow (should I bring breakfast to my bed tonight to be safe?) ;) So very many squats and lunges and a crapload of arm/shoulder work. Ow. And it was so weird to be doing squats and exercises with weights while listening to pop music. I liked it, but I thought I was going to die. ;) Burned 536 calories, and barely walked down the stairs out of the exercise room - my legs were jelly!

I'm hoping to go to a "gentle yoga" class tomorrow, if I can move!

EA Sports Active 2 revisited

Took the weekend off since my neck was bothering me (oh, so that's why I don't usually do a lot of high impact workouts...), but today I got back into the swing of things and worked out at home. I started off with about a half hour with the Gold's Gym Cardio Dance Wii game (I still need to review that!), with my new best friend, my heart rate monitor. Great workout and it got me motivated to try EA Sports Active 2 again...

So with my heart rate monitor on (chest strap and big ol' wrist display), I strap on the EA wrist sensor (their HRM) and the leg strap and got going. I did a mix of activities and sadly, my heart rate monitor said I burned a lot less calories than the game said. I was curious about this, and did a single 10 minute step workout. I had been disappointed when I first got this game because the calorie count on the step workouts were much lower than in the first game. Well...

they're quite inflated from my heart rate monitor on this second game, which means the first game was *wildly* inaccurate on this. For the 10 minute workout, EA Sports said I burned 113 calories. My heart rate monitor said 86 calories. Both have the same weight/height/sex information, and both showed the same heart rate during the workouts. Inflating the calorie burn by over 30% is really, really disheartening. I am very disappointed in this, especially since I thought I was burning significantly more calories in this game than I really was...

Woo momentum!

I did make it out on Wednesday to sign up for the 30-day membership at my local gym, and then did a water fitness class. It was surprisingly more intense than the classes I took before my wedding - which is good! Unfortunately I had really beat up my arms & shoulders in pilates the day before, so yesterday was a day of pain. ;)

Today, I woke up early and met my friend for a morning Zumba class - and then I went straight from there to a water fitness class. According to my new heart rate monitor, I burned 684 calories in the Zumba class, and then during the water fitness class, I burned another 478 calories. Not bad for finishing before noon! ;)

Let's see how long this lasts. ;)

Well, that hasn't exactly worked as planned...

So, erm, yeah... at my highest weight in 4 years. Eight pounds gained in the past two weeks alone. What. The. $(#(@#**!

My motivation is out the window. It's ridiculous. A friend suggested I join her for a Zumba class last week, so I did that and it was fun (though my knees were sore and my calves were on fire for a few days!). I'm hoping to join her for another class this week. I'm actually going to try to get my butt out the door to go join my local gym (and a water fitness class in an hour), but gee, it's so much easier to just sit here on my couch and whine on blogger...

Wish something would click and my body would understand that this weight has got to go!

First tiny goal: get back to the weight I was on 5/1: 3.8 pounds less than today

Second tiny goal: get back to the weight I was on my birthday: 8.4 pounds less than 5/1

and then we'll worry about the additional 56 pounds I need to lose...

A new start

Wow, it's been awhile...

Today I lost my job. While that sucks (ok, it really sucks!), I'm trying to look for the silver lining here. I really have no excuse to not get my health in order now. I've got a Groupon for a local gym that I hope to redeem next week - I might take a day or two and go to the beach to just unwind. My diet? No excuses - time to eat healthy 90% of the time instead of 20% ;)

I'm not going to stress out about being unemployed - I will eventually find another job, but for now, I really need to put my health and well-being into focus.

Here's to losing a job and gaining my health!

Quiet start to the new year

So, 2010 was a disaster when it came to weight loss - gained 20+ pounds over the year. Oops. I also only hit 3 million steps instead of the 3.65 million I should've hit if I had kept my 10,000 steps a day. Coincidence? I think not.

In 2011, I'm working to keep that 10,000 steps a day - and so far, I'm behind, of course. ;) But I'm much closer than I was last year at this time.

I've also stopped using that EA Sports Active game because it got annoying with the controls not responding correctly often. I'm getting back into the Walk Away the Pounds videos, and also sometimes using the Gold's Gym Cardio game for the Wii (review on that coming someday).

I feel like I'm talking to no one here on this blog, so my apologies for not posting for awhile. Maybe I can get more active on here, too ;)