Weightless Wednesday #10

Happy May Day everyone! :) This post is going to be a combined fitness post and a look at what I've been sewing lately. So, hopefully that's a little treat for those of you who stick around for these weight loss posts!

My husband and I have been very busy lately. His grandfather was recently placed in hospice care and he's been a huge help to his family in that transition. It means he's been very occupied and drained lately so our trips to the gym did not increase. We've been doing a lot of walking outside actually. That meant I did get a little sunburned on Sunday... :) But, he has been a huge sweetheart and actually brought me tulips (my favorite!!!) the other day in to my office. I have the best husband ever!

With our work outs I have managed to continue to stay on track. I didn't lose any more weight this week, but I maintained my weight at 151. We have determined that our weight lifting has helped us lose weight more than just doing cardio workouts. So, the most important thing for us to do is to get in all of our weight lifting sessions (3 per week). We have been very diligent with those and have gotten in some cardio when we are able. Tonight we plan to weight lift and swim, so it should be a good night!

Heaviest Weight: 180
Starting Weight: 175
Weight Last Week: 151
Weight This Week: 151
Weight Loss This Week: 0 pounds (but none gained!)
Total Weight Loss: 24 pounds

Now... On to the sewing! :) I put together the April Color Bee Shocked block. It's a HUGE churn dash block at 24.5 inches unfinished. I couldn't square it up because my largest mat is only 24 inches long! But, if I ever need a quick quilt top, this is the block I'll be choosing! It went together so quickly and you just need a fat quarter for each churn dash block - very convenient!

The thing I've been working on the most is the guitar quilt for our praise band leaders. We'll be giving it to them on Wednesday next week, so I plan to have it finished by Sunday. I have it all pinned and marked for quilting. I'll be stitching in the ditch around the guitar and some of its internal elements and then doing straight line quilting radiating out from the body of the guitar. Then I'll need to add some holders for a dowel for hanging, bind it, add the quilt label, and then it will be done! :) I'm very excited to give this to them.

So, that's it for me this Wednesday. What are all of you up to?

**update**

Here's some pictures of the guitar quilt all finished up!

Weightless Wednesday #9

Hello everyone. I hope you're all having a great week! It's starting to look more like spring around us. We had our first real day over 60 degrees on Monday and today it's sunny again. I think mother nature might be playing a cruel joke on us since we've had rain for the last few weeks straight. Hopefully the sun and warmer weather continue to stick around!

This week I fell like I still didn't get to the gym as often as I should have. We have been very consistent in making sure we get to the gym for our weight lifting days, but haven't done as much cardio as we did when we started working out. We also haven't gone swimming in a long time because my swimming suit started to deteriorate (gross I know, but it was really old) a couple of weeks ago. I finally got to the store to buy a new one yesterday, so we should be back in the pool today. It will feel really good to get back in there. And - my new swimming suit was on super clearance, so it was only $18! Can't beat that.

While at the store I also tried on... BIKINIS! I've always wanted to wear one but never had the confidence to do so and never really had the body either. Now I'm really close to being able to wear one without turning heads for being too pudgy. My problem is none of the tops in the store fit. I've always had a larger chest, even in high school, so getting something where I'm not sticking out all over the place is going to be a challenge. If they could just make a bikini top that is very similar to a sports bra and get rid of the huge amount of padding and push up material in all of them, I'd be just fine. Any suggestions on where I should look? I'm thinking I might have more luck at Victoria's Secret? The bottoms fit just fine in regular sizes, which is what is really frustrating. Oh well, I guess such is life, right?

So, here's my break down this week:

Heaviest weight: 180
Starting weight: 175
Weight last week: 154
Weight this week: 151
Weight loss this week: 3 pounds!! - that was a HUGE shock on the scale (yeah weight lifting!!)
Total weight loss: 24 POUNDS! I'm so happy! :)

Thanks to everyone for putting up with my weight loss posts. I think I'll continue these until we leave for our trip, since it was my goal to get skinnier for that. That is coming up at the end of May and we leave on the eve of the 22nd. I'm also in a wedding a few weeks before that and have lots of quilting related things to get done on my plate. So, hopefully you'll see a lot more posts from me in the next month (or else I'm not working on my commitments enough!)! Have a great day!

Weightless Thursday? (#8)

Well... Apparently Wednesday came and went without me realizing I had missed publishing a Weightless Wednesday post! I'll be completely honest with you this week, we definitely struggled with eating right and getting to the gym. Just when I think we're on a roll we get complacent and think "I can afford to miss a night" or "this cheeseburger won't do that much damage..." Well, we survived the week, but just barely.

This week, I am hoping to do better. I'll still have days when I won't be able to get to the gym due to plans we made a while ago. And, unfortunately it has been raining here for the past couple weeks basically every day, so running outside has been put on hold. We have flood warnings all around us just like many other parts of the country. Thankfully we are on the 3rd floor of our apartment building, so it will take a while for us to be washed out of our place! :)

Even with our bad week, I did manage to lose a pound. I think that's phenomenal considering all the junk I ate! And, my husband lost somewhere between 4-5! He couldn't believe it when he got on the scale. So - maybe our bodies needed a re-set from all of the healthy eating and work outs? That's what I'm going to tell myself anyway, because I sure don't understand how we both didn't gain 5 pounds.

I've got 3 weeks until my friend's wedding on May 11th, so I need to keep going strong. Then we are going on vacation 2 weeks after that and I want to be in even better shape by that time. So - here's to another week on the "get fit" wagon!

Heaviest weight: 180
Starting weight: 175
Weight last week: 155
Weight this week: 154
Weight loss this week: 1 pound
Total weight loss: 21 pounds :)

Weightless Wednesday #7

Woohoo! I finally hit the 20 pound weight loss mark! I was so excited to get on the scale and for it to read 155! Especially since *full disclosure here* I didn't throw out the rest of my chocolate bunny. Actually, I had a bad night where I sat down on the couch and proceeded to mindlessly eat the whole thing. Oops...

That being said, we are learning to live a little with our diet. Yes, we keep things under control with portion sizes and caloric intake, but sometimes you just need a chocolate chip cookie, or pancakes, or nachos. We've tried not to binge on them every day, but usually once a week we get to have something we think is a little naughty. Obviously I over did it with the chocolate bunny this week, but I'm still very happy with my progress.

It's become habit for us to go to the gym now. It actually feels weird and wrong if we don't. One of these days I'll need to have the front desk guy take a new picture of me because I dont like seeing the old me every time I scan my ID card. :) Silly, I know, but I've earned a new picture.

So, on to new goals and new places this week. I've got about 20ish more pounds I'd like to lose, but I can't remember the last time I was under 150. So, that's the next goal. I think my husband wants to lose another 40. We'll see how muscular he gets first. :) He's looking very dapper already!

Heaviest weight: 180
Starting weight: 175
Weight last week: 156
Weight this week: 155
Weight loss this week: 1 pound
Total weight loss: 20 pounds!!! 

Weightless Wednesday #6

Hello everyone. It's been another week of work outs and eating vegetables - kinda...

This week had our first family holiday with Easter which presented some obstacles. There was ham, cheesy potatoes and chocolate bunnies everywhere. I was not very strong with the temptations either. I'm pretty sure I had at least 5 Cadbury eggs this week, and I just bit the ears off of a chocolate bunny that I have at home last night. So, I need to work on my will power.

All that considered, I managed to not gain any weight this week, but I also didn't lose any. So, this week I hope to get back on track, and the first thing I'll need to do is throw out the rest of that chocolate bunny. That is going to be so hard! Wish me luck!

Heaviest weight: 180 pounds
Starting weight: 175 pounds
Weight last week: 156 pounds
Weight this week: 156 pounds
Weight loss this week: 0 pounds
Total weight loss: 19 pounds

Next week's goal is to finally hit that 20 pound mark!! :)

Weightless Wednesday #5

Hello everyone! I can't believe another week has gone by and that it's almost April! March has just flown by. This week it was my goal to get down to 155 pounds to have lost a total of 20. Unfortunately, I didn't quite make it, but I did get to 156. 1 more pound to go, so hopefully that will be my Easter gift to myself!

I did manage to squeeze myself into those size 6 jeans that I bought the other week. There's a little bit of pudge that still sticks out on the top of the waistband, but all of my tops cover that up. :) I rent apartments for a living and one of my tenants came in to the office to talk yesterday. She actually complimented me on the jeans that I was wearing and then said, "But I could never wear those, you're so slim." I had 2 thoughts that kind of popped in to my mind at the same time. The first, and the one I went with, was THANKS! I thought it was pretty cool that someone had actually called me slim. But, the second thought I had was hey, this took a lot of work to get here, I wasn't born this way! There's no way for that person to know how far I've come, so I went with it as a nice compliment.

It makes me wonder though how many people I've seen in the past who are thin and slim and I just looked at them and thought they're just naturally that way. I bet there were plenty of them who had to work hard to keep that body slim and fit and my jealousy was unwarranted since it wasn't just given to them. It makes me look at fit people in a new light.

Going along with this whole body image thing... While watching the Today Show this morning they said that mannequins are starting to be more plus-sized. I just heard that the average mannequin is a size 4-6 while the average US woman is a size 14.



I think it's great that stores are going to put the clothes they sell on mannequins that look more like the average person. I remember going shopping and being very frustrated that the clothes on the mannequin looked no where near as good on me, even with trying on my bigger size. I think this will help to make the body image of women better. I've fallen prey to it many times where I'm jealous and envious of the people (or even the mannequins) that can wear a size 2 dress. I don't think they should go as far as to make mannequins that are obese, but mannequins that are average and healthy looking would be great. What do you guys think? Do you get mannequin envy?

Heaviest weight: 180
Starting weight: 175
Last week's weight: 157
This week's weight: 156
Weight loss this week: 1 pound
Total weight loss: 19 pounds

Weightless Wednesday #4

Wow, I can't believe I've been having this series for a month already! It seems like I just started working out a couple days ago. :)

This week we stayed pretty much on track with our goals. For sustainable weightloss I can lose about 1-2 pounds per week and that's right what I did.

The best thing I did this week though, was go out and buy some new pants. I am now down 2 sizes! I used to wear a size 12, and that probably was pushing it. I had to stretch the waistband part as soon as pants came out of the dryer to help them widen out a bit. I dont have to do that anymore! I bought 2 pairs of size 8 pants this week and no muffin top in sight! I'm ecstatic! I'm actually debating taking one back to trade it in for a size 6, but I don't want to get my hopes up that I'll be down that far in the very near future. That could take a couple months yet.

The last thing to share is that this week we really added in some weightlifting. We met with a personal trainer for a free orientation at our gym and it was probably the best thing we've done for our workout. She showed us a 30 minute circuit that we can do every other day to help tone and build muscle. And boy did I hurt the next day after that! So, I hope that helps us get fit on a new level. :)

Heaviest weight: 180
Starting weight: 175
Last week's weight: 159
This week's weight: 157
Weight loss this week: 2 pounds
Total weight loss: 18 pounds

Next week's goal is to hit the 20 pounds lost mark! That is going to be a lot of work for sure!

Weightless Wednesday #3

Hello everyone! I hope you're all doing well and enjoying March. It's hard to believe we are already in the middle of the month! I wish it would hurry up and stop snowing here so we can get into spring. I'm so ready for warmer weather!

Thanks for coming back for another of my Weightless Wednesday posts. My husband and I have been going strong with our work out and fitness goals and I have a tool to share with you that has helped us a lot. It's called My Fitness Pal. It's a website (and you can download an app for your smart phone!) that helps you keep track of your weight loss goals. You can track the exercise you do, the calories you consume, and your weight or measurements.

We've been using this tool for about a week now and it has been really helpful. You can search for different foods from restaurants, grocery stores, name brands - or you can scan the bar code on the groceries you buy. You can even enter in your own foods if you don't find it on the list (or add in the calories from an obscure local restaurant!). It will then plug in the calorie info and you can choose the serving size that you actually ate. Here's a screen shot of my tracking from today:

I know the picture is a little small, but it does a really good job of detailing out everything I've had to eat. I earned extra calories from working out today. Normally my goal is 1200 calories for the weight I want to lose if I don't work out at all. Since I put in just under 500 calories on the elliptical today I was able to eat a little over 1600 instead. You'll notice that I had 1/2 of a small, veggie pizza for dinner. Not the healthiest of choices, but I only went over my calorie goal by about 80 calories for the day. That's not so bad, and the pizza allows me to stay sane during the work out routine. :)

So, you can sign up for a free account at www.myfitnesspal.com. I love it and I'll probably still track what I eat even when I've met my weight loss goal. Speaking of... how am I doing? Here's how far along I am now:

Heaviest weight: 180
Starting weight: 175
Last week's weight: 163
Today's weight: 159
Weight loss this week: 4 pounds
Total weight loss: 16 pounds

I'm so excited that I keep going down and that I'm into the 150s!! I think I'm going to hit a plateau soon though, and the weight is not going to keep coming off as quickly anymore. Ideally I'd like to get down to 135 at the end of my journey. So, I still have 24 pounds to go. Right now, I'm pretty sure I'm lighter than I was when my husband and I got married a little under 4 years ago. I'm feeling great and I hope I'll have the willpower to continue! The best part is that now people are starting to notice that I've lost weight! :) Happy Wednesday everyone!

Weightless Wednesday #2

Hi everyone! It's the second week of my Weightless Wednesday posts and so far we're still going strong. :) We are making steady progress toward our goal of being healthy and fit.

This week we had some challenges - mainly the weekend. We didn't work out on Friday or Saturday simply because we just didn't feel like it. That's not exactly the way you're supposed to go about losing weight! In fact, not only did we not work out, but we went out for bloody mary's and a cheese burger (Please don't judge us too harshly)!

All of that aside, we did have some good things happen to us this week as well. We've reorganized our refrigerator so that we know where everything is. I even labeled the shelves and drawers inside. But, my favorite part is the message board we have outside the refrigerator.

We have a lot of left overs that end up going to the trash because we don't know they are in there or just pain don't want to eat them. That's changed now that we can see what is in the refrigerator without having to dig through the tupperware containers.

We also bought a juicer back in November last year. So, we frequently make vegetable juices to drink in place of a meal or snack. That means we buy a lot of vegetables and fruits and if we don't use them then they go bad. This board helps us remember what is in the refrigerator. When it is gone, we erase it from the board. When we go grocery shopping, we move any remaining "new veggies" down to the "old veggies" section and try to use those vegetables up first. So far it's been working, but this is really our first week on this system.

For things not on this list, we use the top shelf of the refrigerator. Basically any dairy, breakfast or beverage items go on that shelf. Condiments and our water pitcher go on the door.

Along with the organization we've been trying to eat healthier too. Before we started working out we probably ate take out or went to a restaurant at least 4 out of the 7 days of the week. The rest we usually ate microwavable or easy heat-up meals out of a box. Since then I've been trying to eat gluten free as much as possible and that just isn't possible with the eating habits we had previously. So, here's what we made for dinner Tuesday night:

We made a sauteed asparagus and grilled chicken breast. The asparagus we sauteed with olive oil, red onion, garlic, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning. The chicken my husband grilled plain. We took the asparagus out of the saute pan and then added the chicken breast to that pan with a little more olive oil, some more onions and lots of extra seasonings. He added to seasonings so I'm not sure what he all put on top, but there was some chili powder, seasoned salt, garlic pepper and then he also added a small amount of ginger marinade.

This meal was soooooo good! I zoomed in on the food so that it wouldn't look too ridiculous on my larger plate. ;) We usually buy frozen chicken breast, but most of those are huge. At least 12 ounces each. So, we split one and then each ate about 8-9 stalks of asparagus. We used probably 1/4 red onion. This meal is so forgiving, but I think they key to the asparagus is the lemon juice and the balsamic vinegar. I could have eaten a whole bushel of asparagus this way!!

So, with the good and the bad, how did we do this week?

Heaviest weight: 180
Starting weight: 175
Last week's weight: 163
Today's weight: 162
Weight lost this week: 1 pound
Total lost: 13 pounds

Not too bad, but we can do better. I'm looking forward to the next week and hopefully we can stay more on track this time! :) Happy Wednesday everyone!

Weightless Wednesday

Hi everyone! I hope you all are having a great Wednesday. We got more snow last night, so I'm not looking forward to the little drive to work. Our car tires aren't very good and it's pretty windy and slick out there.

I want to start a weekly post to help keep me accountable with my work out schedule and goals. My husband and I joined a local gym a couple weeks ago and we've really liked going so far. We have had a few days where we didn't quite get to the gym - mainly on the weekends. But, so far we are still going in the right direction.

Here's a before picture of me when I wasn't working out at all and let myself balloon out. At my heaviest I was probably up to 180 pounds. Not where I want to be at all! I had to wear my baggy shorts and baggy tank top on this trip, and I wasn't comfortable at all.

So, now we've been trying to go to the gym every day after I'm done with work. My husband really likes swimming. He was on his community swim team growing up so he's very natural in the water. Me? Not so much. I did swim lessons when I was in 8th grade and it was very embarrassing and painful. I never really liked swimming and it's carrying over. He's been helping me a lot with my strokes and speed and I'm not the best student. I get kind of cranky when he's giving me tips, so I need to be a lot better with that. My mother-in-law did give us some new goggles and gave me a hair cap. I've never used one of those before and it felt like I had shrink wrapped a balloon to my head. But -  it helped sooo much! So did the new goggles. No more leaking! :) It has made our swimming routine much more enjoyable.

I like to run. When I was little, I hated it! I used to walk when we had to run the mile in gym class and just pretend that I was too cool to run or that I didn't want to mess up my hair for the next class. (I probably hadn't even done anything with my hair that day!) But, now I really like it. I had run a couple races right after graduating college - just 5ks. A couple years ago I actually ran a 10k which was a huge goal for me. I'd like to get back up to that and maybe even run a 1/2 marathon at some point in my life. Last night we ran 2 miles together which was great. My husband doesn't really like running, but I'm happy he did it with me. Since it's snowy here we ran around the track in the gym and he had to run past a pilates class full of women while he was doing it. I love him so much!

So - I'm hoping to use my blog to help keep us accountable. We've got a vacation (and I'm in a wedding!) this May and we'd like to be down several pounds and feeling much better by that time. So, Wednesdays will be devoted to my challenges and successes here as I try to get fit and healthy. I'll be calling it Weightless Wednesday because hopefully I'll weigh less than I did the week before. :) Please feel free to chime in with any tips or challenges you've faced. I'd love to hear it!

Heaviest weight: 180
Starting weight: 175
Today's weight: 163
Total Lost: 12 lbs