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 ;)

Holiday weight explosion

Ugh... too many holiday commitments that I can't get out of, and too many holiday cookies around to tempt me... I am hoping to get out of December at the weight I entered into it!

How are you coping with all the eating out and sweets around you? I have so little willpower and I'm always hungry, too - despite eating my usual protein- and fiber-heavy foods.

EA Active 2 - Calories burned dramatically less than More Workouts

Has anyone else encountered this yet? (I'm using the Wii without the Balance Board turned on - and yes, the BB is not enabled in the settings)

I was religious about doing the step aerobics on More Workouts - and I'd burn at least 150 calories per 10 minute segment. In particular, doing any step repeater would burn almost one full calorie per step (3 kicks = almost 1 calorie).

On Active 2, I'm lucky if I burn 100 calories in a 10 minute segment. The step repeaters burn about .2 calories instead of .8-1.0. It's dramatic. Today I got frustrated and stopped moving, and the calorie counter kept on moving (slowly but still went up). I took off the heart rate monitor in case it was based on that, and the calorie counter still moved as though I was doing the exercise.

I'm so frustrated - this was my favorite component of More Workouts and it's so inaccurate in Active 2... I was elated to not be smacking myself with the cord from the nunchuk, but I am unhappy about the calorie burned issues!

Luna Bar Lemon Zest

I needed a bar today since I knew I would need to eat while on the go. I picked up this Luna Bar yesterday to give it a try. If you're not familiar with Luna, it's "the whole nutrition bar for women", and also 70% organic.

I wanted something that wasn't chocolate (I know, a shocker!) so I went with this flavor. Unfortunately... and this is coming from someone who loves lemons... this is an 11 on the lemon-o-meter. It truly is like eating a ton of lemon zest wrapped around a bunch of soy crisps. Even after finishing it and then chugging a bunch of water, I still sit here with lemon zest flavor permeating my mouth. Fooey.

I'm also not thrilled about the 2 grams of saturated fat - why?! I should've spotted that before I bought this :(

Nutrition Facts

Calories 180

Total Fat 5 g

Saturated Fat 2 g

Trans Fat 0

Cholesterol 0

Sodium 115 mg

Carb 27 g

Fiber 3 g

Sugars 18g

Protein 9g

Bodybugg or Gruve or some other gadget to track activity?

Hi there internets!

I really want to track my activity levels better - I would LOVE a way to track my actual calories burned throughout the day and when I'm working out.

I bought a fitbit last year - and I returned it :( It was completely unreliable on the one thing I could measure for certain - my sleep - so I didn't trust it at all on its other readings. I was heartbroken.

I like the idea of the Bodybugg, but I don't want to wear a big bulky strap around my upper arm and call attention to myself like that. (And it's really expensive!) The Gruve sounds interesting too, but also pricey - but no armband!

I also generally fear the idea of a chest-strap heart-rate monitor, as I don't even like the pressure of my bra on my chest. ;)

Any ideas? What do you use (or what would use if money was no object)?

EA Sports Active 2 day 2

So.... today did not go so well with the new EA Sports Active 2. I wasn't allowed to do the next day of the 9 week challenge - you can't do the next workout on a previously-designated rest day. Suck. My schedule is so unpredictable, and on the previous games, I was always allowed to skip a rest day to keep on going. Not cool at all.

I did a trainer-generated full-body workout instead, and I got very frustrated. It felt like the leg sensor just wasn't working. I was doing "foot fires" and it didn't register a SINGLE move. It's like doing a squat and then running super-fast in place. Not one bleepin' motion registered. I yelled many obscenities at the tv today, I must admit. I had to skip a bunch of exercises and felt so frustrated by the end.

So I decided to try a 10 minute step aerobics workout. I love the step on the More Workouts game - been doing it a bunch - and usually I burn 160 calories in the 10 minutes on that previous game. The new game has a bunch more moves in the step workout, which is great! Also some boxing moves in there. Aaaaand... I burned only 105 calories in the 10 minutes. Why did I burn 1/3 less calories even though I was moving SO much more? I was watching the calorie count and it just crawled so slowly, it was ridiculous.

We'll see how tomorrow goes. I was definitely reminded today how much I hate the trainer's nagging when a motion doesn't register correctly - and also why I was just doing step and boxing at the end with the previous game. ;)

Total with the 2 workouts today:
33 minutes
254 calories
0.8 km
121 average heart rate
157 max heart rate

EA Sports Active 2 - New game!

SO EXCITED!! Thanks to the wonderful folks at EA, I received a copy of the new EA Sports Active 2 game yesterday! I've posted a lot in the past about their two previous games and have been very anxious to get into this new game.

Big changes with this one - first of all, it's available for all three platforms, not just the Wii. Each version has some differences, but for me, the Wii is still very convenient (and I liked that I could import my stats from the previous two games into here).

The biggest change of all - NO MORE NUNCHUK NEEDED!!! Seriously, I cannot express how much this improves the whole experience here. I was constantly smacking myself during many of the exercises on the previous games, because you needed to have motion sensors in each hand and the only option was to use the nunchuk. This time around, they've added a separate leg sensor (replacing the old nunchuk holder) and also a heart-rate monitor (replacing the need to hold a second sensor - the nunchuk - in your left hand). I'm excited about the heart rate monitor feature of course, but simply delighted to never need that darned nunchuk again for this game. ;)

I'll be posting about this more as I get into the game more, of course. Today I started the three week "Cardio Kick Start" but frankly, it was too beginner for me (even on medium intensity). It was only 15 minutes long, and I want to do more than that. So... time to switch challenges!

I started "The 9 Week Program" on medium intensity. Since I had just finished the other workout, I skipped the stretches and jumped right in. Tons of new exercises (and much prettier backgrounds too!), and overall much quicker loading. No longer do you need to press the "A" key twice between exercises, it just starts loading the next one when you finish the current one. Nice. Unfortunately, since you can go some time without touching the remote, you can get interrupted mid-exercise because the remote shuts off. DOH. So I try to remember to just grab the remote and press "A" between each exercise anyway. ;)

I'll try to review more of the individual exercises as I get a chance. Another big improvement here is the integration with the web - I can view a lot of my stats and goals and other details on their web site! Sweet! Nice graphs show me my calorie burn and heart rate from each individual exercise, too. Very nice.

Total with the 2 workouts today:

37 minutes

280 calories

4 km

111 average heart rate

162 max heart rate

I created a workout group on their community site if you'd like to join: group name "loseit" and password "weight"

Let me know what you think!

Hungry Girl pumpkin brownies

I remember reading this recipe aaaaages ago on Hungry Girl's web site - pumpkin brownies. Basically, you take a can of pumpkin and dump it into a box of cake mix, bake and eat. You don't add anything else to the batter, so it's ridiculously thick. I had a ton of pumpkin from my garden this year, so I used pureed pumpkin instead of a can. I used a triple chocolate cake mix, and made the brownies in muffin cups. When I tasted the raw batter, I was bummed that I could pick out the pumpkin flavor. After baking though... no pumpkin! Sweet!

These aren't as brownie-like as I had hoped - definitely cakey. Fresh out of the oven, they're really good, but it is hard to limit yourself to one (or two...). Curious how they'll taste tomorrow!

Each cupcake is roughly 180 calories, so 2 of them is way more than I should have for a snack. Maybe if I had made them as mini-muffins... no, I'd still want to eat a dozen of 'em. ;)

Still doing the EA workouts several mornings a week - hoping the weight will eventually come down.

Soup giveaway winner!

Congrats to Amy on winning the Progresso soup giveaway! Enjoy your prizes :)

Hope everyone out there is doing well - I'm feeling lonely here in blogland so comment to let me know someone is reading here! :)

EA Sports Active More Workouts - trophies?

Do you play the EA Sports Active More Workouts game? If so, how are you doing on the trophies? I'm so excited that I've earned all but two of them - working out with a buddy and running all the trails. I can't figure out how to get that running all the trails though - I've done two of the six week challenges (on medium and then high intensity), but still this trophy eludes me.

Got back into the swing of things with a ~38 minute workout on it this morning - 10 minutes step A, cardio boxing, 10 minutes step B, cardio boxing again, then 10 minutes step C. Lovely start to my day. ;)

Progresso giveaway!

Progresso contacted me to do a giveaway in honor of their new "Reduced Sodium" soups - sign me up! ;)

I really like one of these soups - bought it often before they contacted me for this giveaway. ;) Their Chicken Gumbo is quite tasty. It's not too spicy and the flavors are darned good for a canned soup. I like to doctor it up a little - add a dash or two of cayenne and also throw in some shrimp. It's a very tasty dinner for me.

This prize pack includes two cans of Progresso Reduced Sodium soup, a Progresso soup mug, and a fitness ball. The fitness ball kicks butt - I've wanted one for so long, and this was easy to inflate with the included hand pump. And the mug is awesome - fits a whole can of soup and has a nice thumb rest for when you sip your soup (or hot tea like I do at work).

To enter this contest, simply reply to this post with your favorite soup for the cool fall evenings. (I'd also love to hear if you have any tips for using a fitness ball!) I'll randomly pick a winner on or around November 4.

Progresso provided me with the product, information, and prize packs through MyBlogSpark.

EA Sports Active Six Week Challenge - High intensity complete

Fun times - just finished my second EA Sports Active "More Workouts" six week challenge - this time on the high intensity setting! Whew. Each day I worked up quite a sweat doing this workout - but man, I also kept smacking myself repeatedly with the cord while doing the paddle surfing and some of the other activities. I cannot wait for the new version coming out later this year that won't require the nunchuk, so I will not hit myself.

I'm not planning on starting up another challenge right now - going to just do my own workouts with it for awhile. I like the step activity as well as the punching, so I'll stick with those. Also need to get into some other workouts too - time to throw in some DVDs every now and again.

Keep an eye out for a contest coming soon...

Another EA Sports Active Challenge underway

Howdy. Not much to post these days - still on this plateau, trying to eat more protein and fewer carbs, but then I slip up one day and my weight jumps and it takes another week to come back to where it was. Fun! ;)

I found a handy little widget for calculating calories burned for walking, so I've added that to the bottom of this blog - always interesting to learn more about how your body works! :)

The day after I finished my last EA Sports Active challenge, I started a new one - this time on the high intensity setting. It ain't kidding. ;) I am working up a sweat every weekday morning before work. Hopefully someday all of this will kick in and some weight will finally come off...

Hope you're doing well!

EA Sports Active Six Week Challenge complete

This morning I finished my "EA Sports Active More Workouts" Six Week Challenge on my Wii! I did it on the medium intensity and finished it in the six weeks.

Overall, I like this game but it definitely annoys me each day as well. ;) My enjoyment of the game has increased since turning off the trainer's prompts. ;)

I still get irritated when my moves don't register properly - the Squash game, for example, involves lunging to the left and right, and sometimes it just doesn't register my lunge - even though I'm totally lunging!

I wonder if EA has any "bigger" folks testing their games. Frankly, my thighs move and jiggle more than a skinny person's, and I think that throws things off for me with this game. The Squash game annoys me the most with this, because you have to start back at the slow speed when you miss a shot - and I'm doing the darn lunge, I didn't miss anything! - but it didn't register because my big ol' thigh is still moving.

For those of you who are not familiar with this game, it uses a strap around your thigh where you insert the Wii's nunchuk controller. The strap is neoprene and adjustable, which is handy. But the nunchuk is not wireless, so I am CONSTANTLY smacking myself with the cord when I'm using the regular controller and the nunchuk in my hands. There's a squat-then-reach-above-your-head exercise which should be renamed "smack-yourself-in-the-face-repeatedly".

There's a new version of this game coming out in the fall - "EA Sports Active 2" - which will be on the Wii and I think also the XBOX and PS3, but I'm a Wii girl all the way. This new game is going to be expensive - $100 - but will be wireless (yay!) and include a heart-rate monitor (which I'm pretty sure will only work in this game and not when doing other non-Wii things sadly). Should be interesting to see what the feedback is on this new one.

I'm also very curious about the new "Gold’s Gym Dance Workout" game for the Wii - I do love to dance, but I hated the "Just Dance" game - it was such a letdown and I didn't feel like I was doing much that was fun. Feh. I am so apprehensive of buying exercise video games because I *hated* that stupid Jillian Michaels game (bought it the day it came out - big mistake there!) and also didn't care for Your Shape or that Just Dance either.

Any video games getting you to move more these days?