WHAT?!?!?!? Only down 1lb?!?!?!?

I know, I know - this journey is a marathon, not a sprint, but I've seriously worked my ass off this week to only see a pound drop and little to no change in my measurements. I sweat buckets of water, my body is sore, my ankle hurts and there's little to no change. I'm not getting discouraged as much as pissed off and motivated to work even harder next week. Everyone is saying that they can see a change in my body, but the scale and the measuring tape are not seeing the same thing - WTF?!?!?!

Grrrr....

I picked up a heart rate monitor to figure out how many calories I am actually burning every morning. I put the son-of-a-gun on this morning and on my ride over to bootcamp the sucker was reading a heart rate of 215 bpm. WHAT?!?!?! I took it off before I started bootcamp. I think I'll test it out in the comfort of my own home this weekend before messing with it when it counts. Part of me wonders if the car and electronics in the car were messing with the signal - who knows... if it doesn't work then I'll take the thing back and figure out what to do from there. Those things are really expensive and I did a bunch of research and read a lot of reviews on the cheap-o ones and got the best of the worst - maybe it's just not good enough.

I gave Stacy full warning about my vaca in 4 weeks. She said that she'll take some time and sit down with me and put together a plan for what I can do with just a jump rope, a resistance band, and me. She said there is plenty and I can get a complete workout with all those thing and don't really need dumbbells and medicine balls and kettle-bells. I figure that I can manage to take my jump rope and resistance band without it taking up too much space in my suitcase AND I gave her enough time to come up with a plan for me so there will be no excuse for not exercising on vacation - lord knows I'll need it more then any other time. I'm hoping that in Vermont I can convince Karen and possibly Shannon to get up with me and exercise and in NH I can drag Tiff's arss out of bed also. We'll see! If nothing else, I will be moving my bootie.

Bootcamp on Monday is at 8am. There is only one class combining both the 6am and 9:15 classes. Stacy asked us all to bring a mini watermelon - I see us doing prison drill runs while holding those little things over our heads... Could get messy. One person asked if we can bring Vodka too! I like that thinking!

Shhhhh... don't tell anyone!!!

I've discovered new healthy foods that I love and I've re-discovered old foods that I love and got away form for some unknown reason.

First, numero uno, on my list are the Arnold Sandwich Thins... these things ROCK!!! They are thin little rolls, either whole wheat or multi-grain, and they are only 100 Calories each!!! I pretty much eat 1 - 2 a day, one in the morning on my egg-white, spinach, and turkey sausage b'fast sandwich, and the other w/ my veggie bocca burger. Bocca burgers are the one food that I LOVE but forgot about for a while. It's funny... I like them so much, I would rather eat my Bocca burger than a greasy fattening burger (although, once in a while I'm sure I'll have to indulge myself, but only for a really awesome burger, from like Taco Mac or something).

Berries... thank goodness it's springtime, because I've been eating my fair share of berries! All kinds, blue, rasp, straw and black!!! I've been mixing them together in a big beautiful bowl and will spoon them over some light cool wHip for a healthy yummy treat that mostly satisfies my sweet tooth. Mary gave me this great recipe for Cocoa Almonds that is sososoooo good, but kinda a pain in the bootie and the good news is that I've discovered that they actually sell Cocoa Almonds at the store - SCORE!

Pickled Beets is another food item that I LOVE that I usually only eat if I'm at a great salad bar, but I decided to pick up my own little jar of pickled beets that had been a fantastic accoutrement to my Bocca Burger sandwiches for lunch.

I'm hosting book club tonight and I wanted to come up with some food offerings that are healthy without anybody knowing that they are good for you. Mary and I put our heads together and came up with a super dooper delish menu consisting of Satay Chicken w/ peanut sauce, Thai Cole Slaw, veggies and hummus, and lastly Angel Food Cake w/ berries and Light Whipped Cream!!! Sounds like an amazing winner that anyone would love - counting calories or not. The great part is that (unless the Diva Readers are reading this blog) no one would even know that this is a healthy smattering of food. There will also be Peach Bellini's which I'm sure are not all that healthy but you've got to splurge a little in life, right? Whatever, I'll just eat a salad for lunch.

One thing I've come to realize is that I'm a little obsessed about calories... I'm concerned about counting every single bite I put into my mouth and I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm going with good cause those nutrition labels are on packaging for a reason - right? In fact, instead of obsessing about the next sweet thing I could eat, in the past, I'm not obsessing about the most food I can possibly eat for the least amount of calories. Did I mention that both my Egg-white B'fast Sandwich and my Bocca Burger w/ Cheese are both around the 250 calorie range? That's AMAZING!!!

As usual, bootcamp has been kicking my A$$, although I feel like I say everyday has been the hardest workout yet. Could be, or maybe I'm learning how to push myself a little more every day. Still can't run, but I'm getting there. Waking up at 5:30 seems to get a little easier and easier every day. I'm thinking that I might have to retire one of my pair of exercise pants cause I feel like I spend more time pulling them up than I do anything else - that's a good thing, right? I may try and push a few more weeks in em. My jeans are HANGING ON ME!!! I can literally take my pants on and off w/ out unbuttoning and zipping - Thank God for belts!

'til next time ya'll - get moving and make good choices!

I hope I don't go to Heaven...

... at least not tomorrow! All this talk of The Rapture has really got me thinking! While I'm pretty confident that I've lead a good life that GOD himself would be pretty happy about, I'm just not ready to go yet! There are still a lot of things I have left to accomplish so if staying (even in anarchy) is what it takes to try and accomplish a few more things before my final judgement day in... September or October or Whatever, well then I'd rather stay.

Stacy took my measurements and I'm down 3lbs from last week... yep, 3 pounds!!! The other super exciting part is that I'm FINALLY starting to lose some inches in my arms, which have held pretty stead for the last 4+ weeks. My waist is where I have seen the most change and my pants are hanging off of me - thank GOD for belts! My bazzoombas have't changed from that first big drop, so G'man should be happy about that! Thank goodness Stacy didn't have to chase me away this morning yelling "1-2lbs NEXT WEEK!!!" but I did get the "now don't go blowing this week cause last week was so good" talk.

It's funny, I'm really starting to enjoy this new lifestyle. I think about going down to the creek daily (although I haven't quite put that to action everyday), and yesterday I finished my lunch kinda quick, wasn't ready to go back to work, so I walked to the beginning of the street and back, and for those of you who have been up my street, you know that is no easy task! My veggies are really growing, I pulled a small handful of green beans yesterday which I conveniently ate before I even got inside! My yellow squash are really growing and will be ready for the pickin' in a week or so, and I'm starting to get little tomatoes and jalapenos!!!

So, given how well things are going and how much I'm just enjoying life, I really want to stick around for a while longer. I hope all this rapture hubbub is just crazy-talk and I'll be updating my boggie again soon!

Heaven on Earth

Not much to update you on. Stacy took my measurements on Friday and my weight stayed the same and my measurements barely changed. Some may see this as a set-back or a plateau, I see it as an accomplishment. While I like to see change in a good way, I'll take status-quo over change in a bad way!!!

On a different note, I've been spending some time exploring my own backyard, it only took 4 1/2 years to do this and I'm so sorry I didn't do it sooner. Climbing up and down that hill is a work-out in and of itself, but the payoff at the bottom is truly amazing. I see myself frequenting this heaven on earth pretty regularly. Now if I can only convince the boys to take the easy way back up next time... Here are some pictures of my big backyard so you all can see what I get to live.

BARF!

No really, that's what I did this morning when I got home from bootcamp. Not pretty, I know, but last week was not pretty when it comes to my health. You already know that I missed bootcamp last Monday cause I was flying back from Jersey. I went in on Tuesday, and then had to miss Wednesday because I was doing a bead demo at a local elementary school. This is were it get's kinda ugly. I came down with a cold, and I also think a little stomach bug cause I was sicky-pooh for the rest of the week and didn't have it in me to get up at 5am and torture myself anymore that my sinuses and bowels were already doing. Stacy rocks and sent me a text and made me feel guilty all weekend because I wasn't there on Thursday and Friday and just couldn't find the time to get my butt in gear. She claims that house cleaning isn't exercise, but I beg to differ.

Saturday morning I got up around 7am and had great plans to go to the park and walk and run and shimmy and crunch and burpee and all that fun stuff, but before I even got our of bed, I decided that I would just stay in the neighborhood, then talked myself into just staying in the cul-de-sac and then stay in the house, and then ended up on the couch... complete and utter fail!

I'm finding that I'm pretty darn good at sticking to a healthy diet when I'm in control, but the second I'm not, it's all blown to hell. Steve's graduation was this weekend and Frank and Susan were in town for it so we went out to dinner, and there was a cook-out after graduation and well, I could have made worst decisions in my food options, but I could have also made way better ones too!

I did manage to get my bootie up at 5am and made it to boot camp this morning. I certainly felt the week off. As soon as I got home and came in the door, headed straight to the bathroom and prayed to the porcelain god. Not sure if my stomach is still a little bothered from last week/this weekend, or if I just over-did-it today and that's my penalty for slacking last week.

I did jump on the scale and given that I didn't work out but one day last week and ate some foods that I shouldn't have, I am down a total of 11lbs, but it's not an official weigh-in, so I'm not updating the tracker. I was just curious how much I sabotaged myself last week.

The Big Surprise

So I know I didn't blog last week, but that was intentional. Mary's baby shower was this past Sunday in NJ and I couldn't, in good faith, blog about what's going on in my life and not blog about the shower and the challenges I would face (and ultimately fail at) without mentioning the shower. Big deal you say... well, Ms. Mary didn't know I was coming so if I blogged about it the surprise would be ruined, hence the lack of blog last week. (FYI: I said blog or some form of the word 5 times in the last 3 sentences, now 6 times) The shower was a HUGE success, the surprise was great and although it really doesn't need to be said, she cried and I cried, and she cried some more and I cried some more... what can I say, that's what I do!

So if you didn't notice to your right, I'm down another 3lbs. I had my weigh-in and measurements this past Tuesday and I was pleasantly surprised. Ya see, I went to Jersey over the weekend, the land of AMAZING FOOD! I honestly ate more bread, and I mean goooooood bread, in the two days in Jersey, than I ate all last month. The Pasta Fagolli soup and fresh Mozz from Anthony's, the bagels, the diners, and the catering for Mary's shower provided more than my fair share of calories. As a matter of fact, after I realized I ate about 700 calories just for lunch on Saturday, I decided that the entire weekend was a wash and I just needed to accept the fact that every once in a while you need to indulge.

Needless to say, I was crazy worried about what the scale would report yesterday after my weekend of gluttony, but it all turned out well. I realize that my weight isn't going down much, but my measurements are. In fact, I lost some 3" at my waist but sadly, I also lost an inch in my bazzoombas. Mary did put a good perspective on it, that while physically, the girls are a little smaller, they are proportionately bigger cause they only went down and inch, while my waist shrunk 3 inches.

I'm ready to get back to the grind. School is out for 4 weeks, which will provide me the impetus to get back into a good routine, I just need to try and shake this stupid cold I brought back from Jersey.