I'm going to try the personal training log and see where it goes. I'm concerned that I don't have enough time/energy/follow-through to update it regularly and to respond to all of the fabulous people on this board.
That being said, I do enjoy reading all of the other logs, so maybe this will provide someone with some work avoidance.
The stats:
Age 34,
coupla kids, youngest is 2 years old
I've been lifting weights on and off since college, fairly consistently over the past 5 years.
My major struggle is weight control. I like to eat, sweets, lots of them, and drink, red wine, lots of it.
I've been enrolled in a physician supervised weight loss program (from now on referred to as W2W) since mid-September and it's helped alot. Don't worry, there's nothing crazy going on. I go in to be weighed once a week, and then meet with the dietician, physician or behaviorialist. They have a big fancy scale that does the four-point impedance calculations to figure body composition and resting metabolic rate. From that the dietician recommended a calorie load of 1700 cal/day. The physician tweaked some of my regular meds to ones that would accomplish the same effect but not cause weight gain or pose a barrier to weight loss. The behaviorialist is an MSW who works on the 'head' part of losing weight and maintaining it. Alot of the principles that she uses are based on the book "The Beck Diet Solution" by Judith Beck. The program is 26 weeks long, so will end around the end of March. I'll probably then enroll in one of their maintenance programs and continue for a while.
In terms of physical activity, I started doing triathlons this past year. In all, I did 6 (!). I've continued to swim and run since the 'season' ended and I plan to do some more races this summer (although, probably not 6) I discovered all of you through Wendy; I 'met' her on the WW Triers board and she talked about NROL4W and all of the other great stuff that goes on here.
My typical workout week looks like this:
Sunday: swim 2000-2500 yds
Monday: NROL4W
Tuesday: swim or run
Wednesday: run
Thursday: swim
Friday: NROL4W
Saturday: run
Don't freak! I do take one day off a week, but it's not always the same day, so it's usually Sun, Wed, or Sat.
Since my youngest was born I've lost 62#, 30# of it since beginning W2W. I stated my goals in the 2009 Challenge Beginning Pics thread and I'll repost them with some pics next.
Goals:
1) Get to 21% body fat (I'm guessing this is somewhere in the low 160's to high 150's.
2) Complete NROL4W and start NROL.
3) New personal record for a 5K (<27:55).
I was going to post an old pic of my face but when it posts, it's ginormous and scary and I can't seem to get it to resize. When/if I figure it out, I'll post it.
My workout today:
NROL4W Stage 5A (third time).
Single arm DB snatch: 40# X 4, (45# X 4) X 3
Single leg, Romanian DL: (35# X 4) X 4
BB Bent over row: 100# X 4, (105# X 4) X 3
Single arm OH squat: (17.5#/35# X 4) X 4
DB Incline BP: (35's# X 4) X 4
Plank: floor 90 sec, elbows elevated 8 inches 100 sec, elbows elevated 8 inches 90 sec [i]I feel like I never get any better at these.[i]
Rev wood chop: (32.5# X 4) X 3
BW Matrix X 2 (3 minutes the first time, 2 min 50 seconds the second)
Oh, and my starting weight is 175# and 25% body fat. I typically weigh in on Tuesdays or Thursdays, so that is my weight from last Tuesday. I'll have a new one (hopefully lower) tomorrow.
wow - you got a log up quick - hope you find it as motivating as i do. i don't post much, but it does keep me accountable. it's such a great group here and you never know who will stop by and leave a quick note to make your day! best of luck in the challenge!
Workout today was swimming with my swim buddies. I got 1850yds in before I called it quits.
I also weighed in today, down 3.3 lbs to 171.7. yay! That means I've basicly lost all of the weight I gained xmas week.
Tomorrow, I think I'm going to do a long run outside.
Planks take forever and are damned hard to push past the timings on particularly if you are clock watching yourself. Rope a family member or someone in at the gym to time you but dont let them count out loud and you'll be amazed at how much you can get too.
__________________
BFG
"The time for talking has passed, actions are speaking louder than words."
Thanks for the tips on planks BFG. I guess I have gotten stronger, when I look back at Stage 1, I couldn't hold for a whole minute and now I'm consistently up above that, it's just slower than all of the other exercises.
As far as calories, I think until I show some trouble losing at 1700, I'll stay there. They redo my body comp and resting metabolic rate every 6 weeks or so, so if my RMR changed, they might change it. The dietician had guessed that my maintenance level was somewhere around 2000, so when I hit goal, that's probably where I'll start.
Thanks for stopping by.
My workout today was a planned 4.1 mile run outside. We got 1-2 inches of new snow last night, but I have my Yaktrax so figured I was invincible... not so. I did the run, but very slowly as my feet slipped with every push off. I had to stop and walk a few times because my HR was through the roof and I wasn't really going anywhere very quickly. I think my Garmin said my average pace was 10:30 or 10:45/mile. Oh well, it's all about the calorie burn, so I'll take it.
On a positive note, my size 10 jeans are getting too big and the belt a bought 1 month ago is now too big! Crazy, I can't remember EVER wearing an 8 or a small anything. Looking forward to more surprises..
My workout today was swimming class. We did 1350 if I remember correctly. It felt good but hard. I don't appear to be any faster, but I keep telling myself it's all about the calorie burn.
In other good news, I went shopping to buy some clothes that fit because my new size 10's are starting to fall off. I bought a size 6 (!) skirt and medium tops. I've never been a 6 or medium anything!
Very exciting.
congrats on the size six!
not sure if you've read much by leigh peele - not necessarily her books, but even her posts in the fat loss forum - but she has a lot to say about neat and working smarter, not harder. ties in nicely with your forced slowdown in your run. those of us with the gwfit monitors or polar heat monitors are seeing it in action - more activity at lower intensity makes a huge difference in calories burned. think housework vs hiit. anyway, it makes for interesting reading.
Haven't posted in few days for a variety of reasons, but the #1 reason is that my attitude sucks. Or it used to suck, I'm working on it.
I had a full out binge on Saturday, a result of poor/lack of planning that led to unbridled hunger, pigging out, etc. I haven't done this in SUCH a long time, that I felt horrible about it. Anyway, I'm not going to dwell on it, it resulted in a weight gain this week (now 173.9 lbs) and I'm moving on.
The scariest thing about this binge was that I fear it means that I really can't get to a healthy weight or maintain it if I do, in short that I haven't changed. I'm countering that thinking with evidence to the contrary:
- I journaled all that I ate (including calories)
- I threw out the remaining offending food
- I owned up by 'confessing' and weighing in as scheduled
- I increased my exercise for a few days to try to compensate
-I'm reviewing and restarting the exercises in the Beck Diet Solution.
Your reasons that you will NOT fail are all good. Everyone slips (just read my logs!), but it's the ownership of the choices (even if, like me, you wait a day to actually log it!) and determination to keep going forward that make you a success.
Thanks guys, I'm a work in progress.
Wendy, I'm 5'7" so I think 157 is the upper limit of healthy weight for my height. However, my body fat percentage is currently about 25%, within the 'normal' range, so I'm a little more muscular than the average 5'7" woman.
Amen Jane! I have to say, getting my body fat percentage tested by a reliable source was incredibly reassuring. I'd always suspected that I was more muscular, but there was no denying that I was overfat as well. Having a realistic goal has made it seem more achievable.
Today was my second to last workout in Stage 5 of NROL4W. I don't normally count down my workouts in a stage, but I really don't care for this stage. I'll be happy to move on.
My workout:
One arm DB snatch: 4 sets of 4 reps 45#
DB SL Romanian DL: 4 sets of 4 reps with 40# each hand
BB bent over row: 4 sets 4 reps 105#
DB Single arm OH squat: 4 reps 17#/40#, 3 sets 4 reps 20#/40#
DB Incline Bench Press: 6 reps 40# each hand, 3 sets 40# each hand
Plank: 105 sec on floor, 90 sec on floor, 70 sec on floor
Rev wood chop: 32.5+# 3 sets of 4 reps each
BW Matrix done twice
I think I'm losing some brain cells the longer I spend in the weight room. Today I did the Single arm OH squat with a 17 and a 40 instead of a 17 and a 35. I didn't realize this until I went to do the second set. Following along with this... I did my first set of incline BP with 40's, thinking they were 35's. When I realized my error, I was kind of glad because those were two exercises that I haven't moved up in weight in a while, but wasn't sure I could handle the 5# jump to the next level. One note about the DB bench presses... I have such a hard time getting the DB's up into position with my right arm. Once I get them into position I'm fine, but I really struggle. Today I had one of the trainers help me to get the weights up for the middle two sets, but she was busy for the last set, so I just did one arm at a time.
Doing much better foodwise today. I keep a written food log and give myself a sticker each day that I stay below 1700 calories for the day. I'm pretty confident today will be a sticker day, it's been several days since I had a sticker day.
Tomorrow is swimming, then the last day of stage 5 on Friday, yay!
We took the family skiing over MLK weekend and had a blast! With the exception of Sunday night, I planned all of my meals and stuck to it. Sunday night DH and I got an in-room babysitter and went a little nutso at the local pub. Have you seen how many calories are in hot wings?!?
Back on track with diet and back to normal exercise. I finished NROL4W Stage 5 on Friday (so glad it's done!) and decided to skip to Stage 7 since I'm more interested in fat burn right now (and I think pull ups are an exercise in futility right now).
I started Stage 7 today, a tough workout, but more my style. Let's see if I can remember all of my weights:
BB Squat: 8 X 95#, 8 X 115#
Static lunge, rear foot elev: 10# each hand 4 X 15
Pushups: 2 sets of 15 on the floor, 2 sets of 15 on the bench
BB Rom DL: 4 X 15 with 95#
DB Bent over row: 10's X 15, 15's X 15, 17.5's X 15, 17.5's X 15
I plan to increase the weight on everything except for pushups next time. I was hesitant to go too high since I've been doing sets of 4 reps and wasn't sure how to translate that to higher reps.
I'm trying to get a little more NEAT in these days. This time of year is particularly tough for me, we get so little sunshine in West Michigan that I pretty much always feel like I'd like to curl up in bed. Last week and this week I tried setting a couple of household goals for myself to avoid just 'chilling' while DD naps. It worked quite well last week, as I got lots done including a couple of closets cleaned out, ALL of the laundry folded and put away (that never happens). My goal for this week is to get all of the Christmas decorations down and put away (Yeah, my decorations are still up, got a problem with that?! I made some good headway today getting all of the ornaments and lights off of the tree and the tree/fire hazard outside.
I have my weekly WI tomorrow, and hoping for a 1-2 pound loss from last week. I really need a good week.
Today was momentous... I had my regularly scheduled WI at the Dr's office. They also did my body comp again since I was seeing the Dr (and I need it for the end of Month 1). I weighed in at 170.6 (-3.3 from last week!) and was at 21.4% body fat! Yahoooooooo! I question the accuracy of this since that means I've lost 8+ pounds of fat and gained 3 pounds of LBM in the last 4-6 weeks, but whatever.
So the Dr walks in and was awesome, shook my hand, congratulated me and said "So are you ready to maintain?" I certainly didn't think that was going to happen today. We discussed it and basicly I'm ambivalent. While 21.4% is awesome, 170 just sounds so high for a woman (I need some brain tweaking?). I like how I look now, but could I look even better? I've never been HERE, at a healthy weight/BFP before, it's all so surreal. The Dr suggested I increase my calories to 1900-2000 per day for the next couple of weeks and see what happens. Try to maintain, but if I still lose a little, no biggie. I was totally on cloud 9 after leaving the office.
Ate a sensible lunch/snack and then the afternoon from HELL hit. Long story short, I got stuck at the end of DS's piano teacher's driveway in a giant snowbank, waited 45 min for her FIL to come pull me out, I was too stuck, waited 35 min more for a tow truck who did get me out (those rigs are AMAZING!). Meanwhile, my hungry, cranky, devil possessed children were in the backseat complaining the whole time. I treated myself to some Indian takeout and some french fries, and some dark chocolate and a couple of beers, and, and (you get the picture). So certainly not the way to start 'maintaining', but I can get back on track tomorrow.
Oh! Workout today was swimming, did 2200 yards on my own, felt good (still on adrenaline high from the Dr's office). Tomorrow planning 1/2 hour of yoga (is it rude to leave halfway through the class?) and then swimming with my buddies.
congrats on your successes! If you feel comfortable where you are right now, and you are performing in your endurance sports, then maintenance is a great thing! I would recommend that you use body fat numbers as a general guide of progress instead of relying on them solely. The results fluctuate wildly with hydration if you are only doing them monthly instead of doing them daily and looking at trends. If your program's scale has a measure of intracellular versus extracellular water calculation you could compare them to determine if hydration status is artificially lowering your bodyfat. Just my pennys worth as someone who has looked into this issue a bit. Probably dexa scan is the gold standard, slowly replacing hydrostatic weighing which can be technique dependent. Bod pod is another option. Some of us have been surprised at how much higher our bodyfats are when we use a more accurate method. Nothing is 100 percent. For me It always seems to go back to how I look and perform.
Thanks Wendy! The doc and I did discuss the accuracy/reliability of their scale and it does compute intra/extracellular water, so I'll review those compared to previous measurements (it was within the normal range yesterday). The doc said this scale was 'comparable' in accuracy to the underwater and dexa methods. I think given the resources around me, I'm getting the best information available, but it would be nice to have an EXACT answer.
jane is right, there is no exact answer with the exception of the old postmortem, and because fat is embedded within organs, even that would be an approximation. I have learned to use the fancy tools as guides only. Just because my caliper lady computes 26 percent, I would not take that as gospel and make decisions about my goals based just on that number. I also look at measurements, pictures, how I look in clothes, how I perform when I lift heavy and run hard. I can tell by my body fat distribution that I still have some fat to lose. I just use the calipers and bioimpedence scale as guides
Becoming freakishlystrong
) I discovered all of you through Wendy; I 'met' her on the WW Triers board and she talked about NROL4W and all of the other great stuff that goes on here. 
Linear Mode
