Progress = Patience!

Barb has two sessions left before her next check point!  Are you following?

1.22.14 – Two more sessions with Lisa before my check in! I cannot believe it. I am  tracking faithfully and my weekly cheat has been in check. Today I am starting to see the scale move a little. For my body weight change is SLOW. I mean weight loss. Gain is almost instantaneous!

A little aside: One of my favorite fast meals is shrimp cocktail. I love shrimp cocktail and it is so easy and who said I couldn’t eat it for dinner. One pound 320 calories. It is delicious and the protein, 69 grams, is amazing. Oh and did I mention 0 grams of fat. Oh yeah I said it. 0! 

My form has gotten so much better on squats. Also I am listing to my body. I am not great at it but I am on the road. Squatting with my perfect form I started feeling it in my back. Just noticing. Then my legs could keep going but my back was done. So I told Lisa and we went to something else. My back is sore, I maybe should have called it earlier, but not unmanageable. What do they say, progress not perfection. 

So here I go getting better each day. 

What are YOUR goals based on?

It's already mid January, where are YOU at with your fitness goals?  Here's another entry from Barb!  

1.17.14 – Finally NO pain in my knee, or back and I’m not sick. It’s almost inconceivable. I have to be conscious of making sure I don’t bend too far the wrong way and that I am really in tune to my body staying safe. Today was great. I reflected a little on how far I have come. The weight may or may not be coming off but I am getting stronger. In 2 minutes I did 78 push ups on my toes. One warm up set of 8 and 3 working sets. I got up to 30 on my second set, 40 is right around the corner. Having goals that are not based on weight is truly wonderful. 

In this moment, as of now, I feel great about where I am and what I am doing. 

Baby Steps... Weaning to Once a Week!

The final countdown is on til February 6th for Barbara!  

1.11.14 – I am switching to one session a week till the BIG day February 6^th! I am nervous and excited to be on my own a little more. Lisa has become my security blanket. Supportive and encouraging but now it’s off I go. I am tracking each bit that enters my mouth. It’s a lot of work but feels really good at the same time to be aware. My cheat meal was not out of control. I may get a hang of this eating healthy thing after all. We shall see. 

Happy New Year (and well one day in 2013!)

More on Barbara's journey at The Works and PFP!  

12.31.13 – Sore throat. Tired. Feeling yucky but to Lisa I go. 

In the past I would have felt today’s work out was awful because of my complete lack of energy and ability to go all out. I would have cancelled. I am on the edge of being bed bound but not there yet. 

I am glad I went.

I had physical therapy after. My knee is almost mended! Hurray! I hate cardio and really need to be tricked into doing it. So I can’t wait to take classes again! I end 2013 sick but happy. Excited to see what 2014 has to offer. What a mountainous and beautiful part of my journey Lisa and the Works have played.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!  

1.8.13 – It was so wonderful to see Lisa. All the snow storms and holidays are, for the most part, are behind us! Today is the first day that I haven’t taken Dayquil so I felt it a little for sure. I sweated. Not I have always been a sweaty girl but today was sick sweating out of me. I was doing lunges with holding the bar on my shoulders and I starting feeling sweat dripping from my ELBOWS! What? Are you kidding me? Wow good times. There is always something new and exciting when your exercising. Lisa, as always, had the perfect amount of, “keep going, you can do more,” and “take a rest.” I starting tracking again and I am SO eating SUPER good. It’s true. I wonder why food that is really bad for you tastes SO good and is little to no effort? We have started making foods that are yummy. It is a lot of work to enter recipes into my fitness pal. So our households new way of running. We pick out a few recipes and plan out the week of eating. Make a grocery list and enter all the recipes into my fitness pal. Then during the week the only thing we have to do is add the recipes to the day we ate them. Super cool and makes life so much easier! 

Holidays are so much fun!

Pre and Post Holiday with Barbara!

12.23.13 – I never knew that a low impact workout could make me sweat so very much! I had a rough eating weekend. My three year old had a meltdown for two hours and I ended up having 2 glasses of wine followed by half a loaf of bread dipped in olive oil. Um yeah that’s not great. The thing I love about Lisa is that she is a person. A real person. I was talking about my difficulties doing any cardio without classes for a few weeks and she shared her challenge of getting back into the cardio game after her show. I am kind of giving my brain a pass for the next week. Should I? Maybe not but I am. This year the holidays are crazy special and I am not focusing on anything other then the celebration! Next week it’s a whole new ball game. 

12.28.13 – OMG OMG OMG OMG! I did a chin up. I did it! Lisa and I were gabbing away about something she had asked me to just try one. And I did it. I didn’t believe it so I did it again while Lisa videotaped me. I am still in shock. It was super awesome. It felt SO amazing. One goal done! Already. Lisa set me up with a 30 day push up challenge. By day 30 you do 40 push ups. So here I go. Day one, done. It is truly amazing what your body can do when you mind is busy thinking of something else. 

Setting Goals and Not Letting the "Food Baby" get in the way of those goals!

So she made it halfway through!  Yay Barbara!    What are your goals for the New Year?!  

12.9.13 – You know those ropes? The real heavy ones that are in the training room at the gym? You see them on the biggest loser and cross fit. Well today I got really lucky. Have you ever done jumping jacks with the rope? Yes. You feel me. No. You have been spared a special kind of agony these afford your whole body. I love that Lisa is always coming up with new exercises for me to loathe, I mean love.

Totally unprompted, an out of body moment for Lisa I can only assume, Lisa says, “If you reach your goals in February I’ll let you train me for an hour.” What the what? Is she for reals? Oh my goodness my mind is jumping for joy. I will most likely start her session with a 7 minute wall sit. Aahhh it feels good just to think about.

12.11.13 and 12.16.13 – Motivation to eat right is flying out the window. Thanksgiving is over but here comes Christmas. The parties, the brunches, the sweets! Oh yum the sweets. “You can’t out exercise what you eat.” Says Lisa. Not what I want to hear. “You can undo all your hard work during the week in the gym by eating poorly on the weekend.” Again, and I can’t stress this enough, NOT what I wanted to hear. I can focus and rock it out at the gym. Even eating during the week but wow is the weekend hard. I have to be responsible for the choices I’m making. My food baby may continue to grow for a few more weeks.  

12.18.13 – Part 1: I have goals set for my final check. I did 27 push ups my goal is 40 in a row on my toes. I want to be able to do one pull up or chin up unassisted. I am 25.2% body fat, that’s the one we are going with. My goal is to lose 10% body fat, 2.5%. Feeling good about my chances! Ran sprints yesterday and dead lifted 165lbs today. Lisa is such a cheerleader for my success that I would have to try really hard to fail. She wanted me to start trying to see how many push ups I can do. I am excited and nervous to see. I would love to weigh in the lower 160’s but the scale is not the goal and I won’t let a number on the scale control how I feel about my journey.

Part 2: I went to physical therapy today for my knee. I know your like, wait you back was hurt now what? My knee has been bothering me for over a month, okay almost two, and now it hasn’t gotten bad enough for me to seek help. Good news is that I have not torn anything. Yet. So for the next two weeks I need to go to therapy twice a week and do no high intensity stuff. Hip hop class, cardio party, plyos, tae box all the stuff. What can I do for cardio? The elliptical and the bike at a low level. So I have already established that I hate cardio. These classes allow me to do cardio without too much thought. Plyos and sprints allow me to get cardio over with. This will be a challenge. It is happening during the holidays so that’s both good and bad! Let’s see what happens.

Numbers are a tool! MidWay Point!!!

12.5.13 – 

THIS IS WHY I LOVE PRO! 

Numbers are a tool. Some of them are accurate to how you feel some are not. Numbers are not the end all be all but they are a measurement to take into consideration when assessing your past and planning for the future. I didn’t feel that the scale would show much movement. And guess what? I was right. Three pounds which honestly I fluctuate that much on a daily basis. Body fat was a little more surprising. It didn’t change which I thought it would. I haven’t been focusing on my diet and these numbers show me that I need to if I want any more changes in that area. Part of PRO is measurements. Much was the same. I lost some off my waist and my arms! I gained in my arms when making a muscle. A difference that I noticed throughout training was my heart rate and breath. That changed a lot! My resting heart rate changed from 73 to 67! The treadmill test I went from below average with my heart rate increasing to 130 within 9 minutes to above average with my heart rate taking 13 minutes to increase to 130. My grip strength went from above average to well above average. But here it is. The end all be all. I went from 27 push ups on my knees to 27 push ups on my TOES!!!!!! What?!?!?! I am so excited.  

My next check in is February  6^th. I am looking forward to even more changes!