It’s all up to me

Today’s weight: 229 (up 1 pound)
I’m up 1 pound today which confirms my suspicions that watermelon is a huge aid to weightloss. I’m not foolish enough to think that it’s THE secret but it’s a healthy snack and I like it so it’s just a benefit that it helps me to lose weight. Plus, I was reading Oxygen Magazine today (a fabulous mag if you like fitness magazines) and they had an article about 10 superfoods. Two of the items out of the top 10 were green tea and watermelon. Apples (another fav) were also on the list, reminding me to get those back into my diet. During the school year I honestly ate one every day b/c it was a snack I could sit on my desk and eat during passing time or while the kids were working. I forget they’re in the fridge now that I’m home and even when I see them I don’t like them cold so it’s not a snack I can eat right away. I know the obvious solution is to sit them in a pretty bowl on the table but if you saw my house right now you’d realize what a funny suggestion that is. In the next week we will be doing a ton of decluttering and life might become somewhat normal so maybe I’ll follow my own suggestion at that time.

The sale went really well yesterday; in 4 hours I brought in almost $300. Today has been VERY slow but considering the fact that we had a massive thunderstorm w/nearly tornado-strength winds that’s to be expected. I’m guessing a lot of people will be cleaning up their yards this afternoon so it might be a slow day but it has allowed me to get some reading done and just sit.

I got up at 5:30 and did the TJ workout w/the weighted gloves and then the AB Jam DVD. It was one of those days where I would have been happy to skip my workout but once I got into it I was glad I got up early. There’s something about punching and kicking that works out all my stress.

Now that I’ll be more able to get to the gym instead of having to workout at home I’m considering adding C25K back into my program. The running intervals will help me to lose weight more quickly but I’m worried about the stress on my heels and/or knees. We’ll see, it’s something to consider. I’m going to look online today for a good deal on new tennies which should help my feet. I finally paid attention to how they were feeling and realized that they feel the way they do when my shoes are reaching the end of their life. It seems I can get about 6 months out of a pair and then the top of my left foot starts to hurt. Weird, huh?

Off to browse for a great deal on shoes. And if the sale stays slow at least I’ll have a lot of time to catch up on what you all are doing

Progress toward workout goal: 39/300

Today’s weight:  228 (down 1.0)

This morning Kyle woke up at 5:00 and I could barely crawl out of bed.  It’s just funny that 5 am is now considered early b/c just a few weeks ago I was getting up at 4:00 to workout.  And not too long ago Kyle didn’t sleep more than 2-4 hours a night so sleeping until 5:00 would be considered decadent.  How easy it is to slip into the summer routine

Nothing new to report.  The garage sale is ready to go and is scheduled to open in an hour but our street is crawling w/vultures.  It always drives me crazy that people think you will open early just b/c they are there.  I might open up a bit early if I feel like it but I have been running ragged for several days now and I’m enjoying just sitting here.  Plus, the summer humidity decided to appear today and it’s hot outside.  At least the rain is gone for now so hopefully we will stay dry for the next several hours.  They’re predicting rain/storms/hail/tornadoes for tomorrow so I’m guessing everything will have to stay inside but I’ll worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes.

Did the last new CE workout today and it just about killed me.  There were 3 separate times that I was down doing pushups and that was often after a killer shoulder/delt raise lift.  But no pain, no gain, right?????  Then I did the 20 minute TJ to get to my hour.  I’m looking forward to being able to get to the gym on a consistent basis next week, I really want to see some dramatic progress.

I’m out of watermelon (see yesterday’s post if you’re confused) and I’m so superstitious that I might send hubby to the store to buy another one.  I have been drinking my green tea like a crazy woman, though, so hopefully I’ll keep losing.  I’m down 4.5 since Monday and I know most of that is water weight I put on last week but it’s still nice to see.

Progress toward workout goal:  38/300

229 (down 2.5)

I think the combination of watermelon and green tea is magical. I have wondered about this for a while but really put it to the test yesterday and lost 2.5 pounds! I know a lot of it was the massive amounts of exercise but when I have had a lot of sodium if I follow it w/this combo I drop weight quickly. And the green tea I have been drinking lately is rasberry flavored green tea by Crystal Light. Love it!!!!

Today the summer warmth has started creeping in and I’m a stinky mess b/c of it. I did my hour of CE this morning and then spent the next 6-7 hours setting up the garage sale. The sad thing is I’m not completely done, I want to wait to set out the toys until my older son is gone tomorrow. Carrying tote after tote of clothes out of the basement and into a warm garage will get the sweat pouring. I’m going to count the stair climbing toward my workout total but not the time I was lifting/moving stuff in the garage so I’m at 90 minutes for the day. I have no plans to accrue any more time today b/c I am pooped!

Time to see what you all are doing.
Progress toward workout goal: 37/300

Weight:  231.5 (down 1.0)

Today has been one of those days.  I got up at 6:00 to do my CE workout and it was a toughie!  I’m in the first week of the third month so each day it’s a workout I haven’t done before.  Tons of shoulders and back today which are weak spots for me so it will be a good workout to continue.  Then I showered, took my son to an art class, hit the gym for 90 minutes while he was at class, picked him up and took him to daycare, went sofa shopping w/my hubby (we decided to keep our old sofa), went grocery shopping and moved an amazingly heavy saw in our garage.  It’s late afternoon now and I feel like I got nothing done.  Hopefully I’ll feel more productive tomorrow when I start setting up for our garage sale Thurs/Fri.  It will feel good to see the pile of boxes get smaller and smaller in our basement and my pile of money get bigger and bigger

Has anyone tried edamame?  I keep reading about it and know they’re high in protein but I worry they’ll be like peas and/or lima beans, 2 veggies that I detest!  Just curious.

On the house front, the other realtor was ok w/giving us an extension on closing on the land so we don’t have to worry about paying closing costs two times.  Also, the lady at the bank put a 10-day rush on the appraisal which should put us able to close on everything toward the end of the month, only a few weeks behind schedule. 

Time to see what you all are doing.

Progress toward workout goal:  36/300

7:15
Took advantage of the lack of rain tonight and cut the grass for a total of 3 hours of exercise for today. I’m glad I got that done b/c I have to take Kyle in to get blood drawn at 6:30 or so tomorrow morning and I’m guessing I won’t get home any earlier than 7:30. I’m going to make sure that I workout right away when I get home, otherwise it won’t get done and then it’s garage sale set-up, ugh.

Today is the first day of my high-powered, ultra-focused summer plan and I am psyched! You would think that calories burned would equal calories burned, but for some reason I see the greatest physical change around my hips when I’m using cardio equipment vs. Turbo Jam or another at-home workout. This really was proven to me last week when we were in the crazy phase and I didn’t make it to the gym. I worked out every day at home but it wasn’t my treadclimber/elliptical routine from the gym. Today, the shelf around my hips is back and instead of having an hourglass shape (granted, a big hourglass but hourglass nonetheless) I have lumps on my butt.

Kyle slept until 6:00 which is great b/c Justin was up a couple of times last night. It’s amazing what a difference it makes to wake up when the sun is already up. I have seen way too many sunrises this past year. I know they’re supposed to be beautiful but I’m glad I’m no longer getting up at 4:00 am on a regular basis.

The plan was to go fishing this morning, take Kyle to therapy this afternoon and then hit the gym after that. I had to scrap the gym plan already b/c a friend of mine was coming over to pick up a saw we no longer use and my hubby doesn’t know him so he wanted me to stay as a social buffer. I would have had Ben come over a different time but we want it gone today or tomorrow to make room in the garage so I didn’t think I could be picky. Instead of going to the gym I did the TJ Cardio party in the basement. Combine that w/all of the walking we did w/fishing this morning and I earned my star

It’s so much nicer to eat lunch at home instead of cramming it in my face at my desk at school at lightning speed. I was able to slice up tomatoes to add to my regular wrap, add cottage cheese and a couple of green peppers. I’m sure there will be challenging food days this summer but I typically prefer to eat healthy foods and now I have the time to fix them.

I’m going to stick w/the daily weigh-ins that I tried last week. I expect small fluctuations so I don’t think going up a bit will get me upset and if I make an unhealthy choice I’ll be able to see the result the next day. This morning I was at 232.5 (lots of sodium-rich foods yesterday) and I can’t wait to see it go down tomorrow.

Progress toward workout goal: 35/300

Somehow I pulled it off and made my goal of not gaining any weight last week. I got up to go to the bathroom and saw 229, actually down a pound! Then I went back to bed for about an hour and saw 230. Who cares, I didn’t gain!!!!!!!!!!! Now the key is to keep the momentum going. I really want to make a lot of progress this summer b/c I don’t lose a lot of weight during the school year. I’m still going to focus on my behavior but it’s easier to gauge progress by pounds so I would like to get out of the 220’s by July 4th. That’s 10 pounds in 4 weeks, definitely a challenge but since I have been kind of slacking lately I should be able to get a good 3-4 pound loss this week.

I’m in the 3rd month of Chalean Extreme and the first workout was tough, but in a good way. I was sweating so much that it was somehow going inside of my nose. Today I’m going to map out my workout schedule for the summer, figuring out how I’ll get to the gym and still get a lot of work done around the house. Really, the major challenge will be this month b/c by July we should have our house ready to put on the market and then it’s just maintaining instead of working on major projects. After a killer arm workout I decided to add insult to injury and re-paint the trim around our exterior doors and garage door. I’m definitely going to feel that tomorrow.

I think I’m actually going to have time today to catch up on all of your lives. Hope everyone has had great success

Progress toward workout goal: 34/300

You guessed it, it’s me! All week I had been doing really well with making healthy food choices throughout the chaos. My goal was to be at or below 230 tomorrow morning and imagine my surprise when I checked this morning and saw 229.5! Awesome, all I had to do was maintain today. As I’m sure you can figure out from all of the melodramatic foreshadowing today has been an awful day food-wise. I keep trying to figure out why I’m eating before I shove the food in my mouth but I can’t really pinpoint it. The only thing I can possibly go to as a reason is this mess at the bank; to add to it we signed the loan documents very quickly yesterday so we could get them turned in Friday afternoon and show them that we’re serious about getting this finished quickly. Last night as I was reading the document I saw that the interest rate we agreed to was 6%. What??? For a construction loan they do a 5/1 ARM and when we met with them a few weeks ago it was 5%. I figured rates must have gone up so I checked the bank’s website and it’s 4.95%. I’m sure it will get resolved but it’s just one more phone call to make and one more obstacle to getting this resolved. We have used this bank before and they’re generally good about things so I would think it’s either a mistake or we’re just not reading it right, but a 1% difference on your mortgage is huge!

I’m not giving up on my goal but I’m not optimistic that I’m going to meet it. Even if I have to erase my food stars, though, I’m not too upset. The whole goal of this week was to get through it w/o gaining 10 pounds, so if I’m up 2-3 I’m not going to flip out. Even though we’ll be busy the rest of the summer getting the house ready to sell I’ll be able to devote 1-2 hours most days of the week to exercise. And being busy will actually help me w/eating b/c I can get consumed in tasks.

So my big dilemma right now is what to eat for supper. My hubby and older son went to the store to get their fishing licenses and I asked him to bring me back a Snickers bar. He forgot to get it so I’m taking it as a sign. I made chicken enchilada casserole for supper tonight, it’s a favorite of my hubby and he has worked so hard I wanted to do something nice for him. Odds are I won’t make my goal even if I eat light but I know if I eat the casserole that I’ll be waaaaay over. So I’m deciding right now that I’m eating veggies and a load of watermelon plus a turkey wrap that I have fallen in love with. If any of you like wraps you have to try Flatout Flatbread. There are several varieties but I like the healthy grain best. It only has 100 calories, 8 net carbs, 1 gram of sugar, 8 grams of fiber and it has flaxseed added for protein. I generally add a few pieces of turkey (60 calories), a cheese stick (80 calories) and a pickle (5 calories) for a yummy lunch. I’ll just have that tonight and tough out the cravings until bedtime.

Maybe I’ll get smarter before tomorrow

I did workout today, the yoga/pilates dvd, so that was 1 smart thing that I did.
Progress toward workout goal: 33/300

Finally, my house is back in one piece and it’s only 8:00 on Friday night. The carpet looks fantastic and it goes so nicely with our new kitchen floor. We have been really picky about the furniture that we’re bringing back in here so our house looks huge! People will be crazy NOT to buy our house when they see it. We still have a lot of work to do but the majority of the huge projects are done. I am one whupped pup, though. I’m sure we’ll do a bit of work over the weekend but it’s going to be more along the lines of taking trash to the dump and a few more items to the storage garage. All painting/boxing/moving work is on hold until next week at least.

This morning I slept until after 7:00 and it was heavenly. If I hadn’t needed to get up I would have rolled over and slept for another hour or two. But I wanted to make sure I got my lifting in before the carpet guy came to finish the stairs b/c my weights are in the basement and I didn’t want to be going up and down the stairs while he was trying to carpet them. After my workout the rest of the morning was spent moving furniture back into the rest of the house, packing up clothes we no longer need b/c school is done for the summer (yay!!) and doing days and days of laundry. With all of the lifting/carrying/hauling I’m going to earn 2 stars today for exercise

The food plan is going well, this morning I was at 231.0. To meet my goal I need to maintain which means I need to see 230 by Sunday morning. I will do this. In all honesty I set this goal w/o really thinking it was going to happen, more of a way to slow down the weight gain. But now that I’m so close and have really kept things under control nothing is going to get in my way. I’m kind of scared to write that b/c generally when I make a declaration I eat something unhealthy literally w/i minutes of getting off the computer. I just need to remind myself that everything is a choice and I need to make the right choice for me.

Progress toward workout goal: 32/300

The carpet guys are here so we’re banished to the basement for the day and I thought I would start pricing clothes for the garage sale next week.  I never realized how many clothes we owned!  I had hung onto clothes for years from various sizes and now that they fit they’re no longer in style.  We held on to clothes from Justin for Kyle but b/c of Kyle’s large head many of them won’t fit so I’m getting rid of those, too.  I hope they all sell b/c even at garage sale prices I could easily have $500 worth of clothes in boxes in my basement.  It would be great if we have a huge sale b/c we priced the baseboards today and they’re much higher than I expected them to be.  It’s funny, we had the cash earmarked for home improvements but now that it’s time to spend it I don’t want to.  I want to improve our house but not have to take any money out of savings to do it.  I know, keep dreaming.

My hands are sore today but not as bad as I expected them to be.  I pushed of my CE workout until tomorrow b/c the idea of lifting 30 pound weights over my head when it hurts to wash my hands isn’t appealing.  Instead, I kept busy working (moving furniture, boxes, etc.) and just hopped on the treadmill for 30 minutes.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a cardio day so I’ll do my weighted workout then.  If my hands still hurt then I’ll just have to tough it out.

We still don’t have anything resolved at the bank and now the other realtor (for our land) is out of town on vacation.  I’m going to try to stop worrying about it.  Worst case scenario we have to pay closing costs twice which I definitely DON’T want to do but it’s only money.  The appraiser picked up all of the info from the bank and the woman there asked him to rush it so maybe we can have everything resolved in the next week or 2.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Weight is good so far this week.  I’m up 2 pounds but I know some of that is water that comes w/increased carbs.  Tomorrow and Saturday I’m really going to cut all non-fruit/veggie related carbs and focus on protein and water.  I know this plan isn’t one that I can do long-term to lose weight, but it’s definitely keeping me from going crazy during this crazy week. 

Progress toward workout goal:  31/300

Hit the ground running on the first official day of summer vacation. Grandma’s party was nice and since Mom and Dad took the kids home from her house I was able to come home. We got to bed late and slept in until after 7:00. Thankfully I didn’t sleep much later than that b/c as I was getting dressed in the kitchen (our dressers are in there until the new carpet is installed) I saw our furnace guy pull up in front of the house. I kicked the floor a few times to wake up my hubby who was still sleeping downstairs. As the furnace guys were doing there thing, I helped my hubby pull up the rest of the remaining carpet and then honestly spent at least 4 hours on my hands and knees pulling up carpet staples w/a pair of needle-nosed pliers. My hands are so tender, I can only imagine what they’re going to feel like tomorrow. After that was done I cut the grass b/c the old carpet needs to be set out on the curb for garbage pickup tomorrow and I didn’t want to have to wait until Friday to mow the lawn. After that was finished we dug out the shop-vac and vacuumed the floors and the ceilings. I just sat down to have a late lunch and now I get to start pricing stuff for our garage sale next week. Don’t worry, my whole summer won’t be this busy, but when the kids are gone we need to take advantage of it and get as much work done as possible.

Even though I have been working for almost 8 hours straight I’m going to count it as 2 hours of exercise for the challenge, 1 hour mowing lawn and 1 hour pulling/hauling carpet. The carpet staples were a pain but not anything I would count as exercise. If I get the gumption later I might hop on the treadmill while we’re watching tv since we’re banished to the basement but I’m not counting on it.

Progress toward workout goal: 30/300