Starting 30 day shred after bronchitis

Bronchitis sucks! I know that all of you that have had it know what I am talking about. SO I have been laid low since Thursday... lots of time to get hooked on the last season of The Biggest Loser. I had forgotten how much I love that show.

Lillian Michaels may be my hero.... but I still hate it when she yells at me on the Wii!!!!!!

But because I had so much down time, and because of my love of all things Jillian, I started doing some surfing and came across sooooooo many before and after shots from her 30 Day Shred. They were so motivateing that I decided that I would be well today and that I would start the program today!

You can get al of the workouts online and so I went for that. I think I'll still probably buy the DVD but for now YouTube it is!

I had watched the workout from bed and it didn't look too bad. And it's only about 20 minutes.... Man was that some of the hardest 20 minutes of my life! But I can't wait to see what my before and after photos look like.

These are my 'befores'...

Ugh - I so cannot wait for the afters!

My big fat belly - remember, this is after losing almost 25lb  already!

It's so hard to take side views by yourself!

Wish me luck - 30 days doesn't seem so long....


Hugs
Meg

I made it to 10% - finally!

This is what my scale looked like this morning:

Woo Hoo - I hit my 10% goal weight!

 So I was so excited because it meant that I had made my goal of 10% this week!
Imagine my utter amazement when I got to my meeting and THIS is what their scale showed:

I always thought my scale weighed heavier - WRONG!!

My leader (Debbie - LOVE her!) was a little perplexed that I would want her to take a photo of the scale - I want proof baby!!
 I celebrated in my meeting - of course!! You'll have to wait until their is someone else home to take a photo of me - because as you can see, self-portraits are not my strong suit!!

My 10% key chain. I worked hard for this thing!

I'm kinda working towards the 25 lb charm for next week - that would need to be another 2.8 lbs in a week... not sure if that is just setting myself up for failure, or a great goal to keep me motivated. I guess we will see next week - but my plan is to do the same thing as I did this week:

I am very proud of that tracker! I met my goal of not going over my daily points plus allowance, and I logged 37 activity points! That's the most ever! I'm going to try to match that again this week.
Wish me luck!!

Hugs 
Meg

Some very interesting reading

I've been devouring Katie's blog over at runsforcookies.com

I am super inspired by her story and her transparency about her weight issues. I am also intrigued by her running tales. I just can't seem to get my head around sentences like "I just went out and ran the 4 miles that I had on the schedule".  Just ran 4 miles? I'm only just now trying out intervals of 2 minutes to see if my calf can cope with it.

I really do have dreams about being able to run for 4 miles. Really truly!

Anyway - through her honest blogging, I've discovered that I indeed m a binge eater. I really just thought that  I was a glutton and had no will power over food. I had never heard anybody admitting to binge eating - but of course now that I know that it exists, I've found all sorts of information.

Here's Mayo clinic's definition.
There's even an association!
And a wiki page!

After reading this particularly insightful blog post from Katie, and reading all of the comments, I came to this book.

Brain over Binge - interesting read.

I haven't made it all the way thorough yet, but it's definitely making me rethink the way that my brain works. I'll give an update when I finish it - and see if it has helped.

As of right now I have been binge free for 2 weeks - the longest I can remember!

Hugs
Meg

Breakdown of my points

I was really struggling about 2 weeks ago with going way over my points plus budget. I would get to the end of the day and would have over spent by about 10 points.

Every week at my meeting our leader asks us what small change we will try to implement for the week. Really - for 2 months straight I wrote down that I would start tracking. I had really tried to track online. I have a monthly pass so that comes with the e-Tools. But it's just so..... exact! I couldn't just quickly jot down what I had eaten, it had to be exactly what I had eaten. And that's so not me - there is really nothing about me that is exact.

Random page from last week - pretty standard 

This is last week's tracker - this is what I put on the front so that I can see what the stats were.

Just a random tracker that I could find - see - not complete!!

Then I hit on the brilliant idea of just using the paper tracker - old school. So I put it on the island in the middle of the kitchen and I could just jot it down. Much more my style because I could just come back later and figure out the points plus values. And that is when it got interesting. Lunches are a HUGE problem for me. I never plan for them and half the time I would just end up eating popcorn! And quite often that would lead to binge eating.

So then I decided to get a bit more organized about what I was eating. I thought about just buying some Smart Ones or Lean Cuisines, but because I am gluten free, there are not too many that I am able to eat. So then I did what any self-respecting web addict would do - I Googled!

I found heaps of ideas about creating my own meals for lunch - and this rocking recipe for an orange-ginger sauce for them. So I put the rice cooker on, baked some chicken and whipped up the sauce. And I made 16 of them! All for the great budget friendly price of 5 points plus!

Then of course I started thinking about budgeting my points plus budget and came up with this formula -
Breakfast = 5 points plus (that's what my oatmeal costs and I am not willing to give this up!)
Lunch = 5-7 points plus
Dinner = 10 points plus
Snacks (3) = 9
All for the grand total of 29 - 31 points plus for the day. My daily target is 27 at them moment (it will go down to 26 after I lose another half pound!) but I have found that I need an extra point or 2 to keep me feeling full. And I do try to eat a few of my exercise points on days when I exercise.

How do you break down your points plus budget?

Sidelined

I've got my first running injury. I'm just a little proud of that (I know - it's sick!)

My left calf had been hurting a bit after every run, but being the idiot that I am, I just decided that it was because it had never before been used! SO I just needed to run through it, right?
Wrong!

I thought that I'd go with the boys after school in the afternoon (I have the boys from across the street on Thursday and Friday afternoon - and of course my own boy, Will) for a run around the block. I was actually hoping to get around twice without stopping. But after the first 50 feet or so my calf hurt - a lot. I made it around once - but then had to go inside from the pain. And besides - it was freezing and the wind was hurting my ears!

After surfing around for a bit (you DO know that Google is your friend  don't you?!) I have decided to stop running at all for this next week. I have my first 5k booked on April 20th and so I want to make sure that I am better for that. And that I can continue to train!

This is what else I am doing to help -

The ice pack in the towel for my calf.

I had been icing my calf after my runs for about a week and that had definitely been helping, but I was in so much pain after Friday that I decided it's just not worth it.

So I decided to do this instead...

This has been a clothes hanger in our bedroom for years. But now it has come into it's own! I moved it in front of the TV and now I can catch up on Downton Abbey (and am in mourning a little right now!)  But it is the perfect thing for my calf as it doesn't put any stress on it at all.

I am finding it hard to know how to add this to my ActiveLink though. This morning I added it as "bicycling - high intensity". I'm a little concerned how this will impact my weight this week - I really, really want to get to my 10% LOSS......

Hugs 
Meg

Weekly weigh-in, Migraines and Binging

So first the great news! When I weighed in yesterday morning my weight was 195. That's 2.2  down from last week and only 1.4 away from my 10%. I cannot tell you how much I desperately want to get to that next week!

I haven't been weighing myself at home - so no photos, sorry - because I found that my mind plays tricks with me and if I see a 'good' number on the scales earlier in the week I let go a little and stop following the program as well.  I wonder if my receptionist will take  a photo of the scale at my meeting?!

Now onto the not very great news! When I woke up yesterday I felt a little dizzy. Strange, right? My honey had inadvertently set his alarm for 3.15am instead of 6.15am. So when that buzzed in the morning it took me ages to talk myself into getting up. Usually I am well awake before his alarm goes off, and have had at least 1 cup of coffee before I have to face anyone! (Especially the very perky 10 year old boy!!)

Needless to say, when  went to get out of bed and looked at the clock and realized it was 3.30 - i just groaned and rolled back into bed. I just couldn't sleep anymore though. I tossed and turned until 7 when I got out of bed and the dizziness started!

Thinking not at lot of it, I went through the normal morning rituals and then went to run on the treadmill. I was so determined to finish the c25k program. My last run was scheduled and I was pretty determined that I would do it. My body had other ideas however. I did manage to complete a full mile (I am still so proud of myself every time I do that!) and then just did very odd intervals after that. I finally completed the 45 minutes and covered 2.6 miles, not too bad but a long way off what I had set out to complete.

On my way to my meeting I put 2 and 2 together and realized I had a migraine!!!! It's been such a long time since I have had one - and they rarely if ever follow the 'typical' pattern, so I missed all of the signs. So - I weighed in and then came home and lay down on the couch with all the curtains drawn.

Then I went on a binge. Ugh! I had managed a full 12 days since my last one and was hoping that I would be able to control it a bit better. But obviously migraines are a bit of a danger zone - so I will need to be on my guard for the future.

This is what I looked like this morning post migraine and after 14 hours of sleep...

Not pretty at all!!

Have a great weekend.


Hugs
Meg