Lose Weight Now

I really was not looking forward to stepping on the scale today. I know that my eating was horrible the past couple of days. I had way too many treats and not enough exercise. But, to my surprise, it wasn’t bad at all!

Here are the stats:

 I am definitely happy with losing a pound this week considering the circumstances and how bad I was eating for about 2 days or so. I promise that I am getting back on track and wouldn’t it be great if I lost the 3 pounds and met my goal next week. That would a month early that I met the goal if it does happen. I know that this is supposed to be a lifestyle change, but I guess there is always going to be those days where you want that ice cream or you have that unsatisfying hunger. I just have to move on and get back on with it.

 I was going over my goals that I had wrote down for my weight loss and it seems that I am still ahead in my progress, so I need to stay ahead and not fall behind. That’s why it is so important to have your goals written down so you can look at them every once in awhile and get re-motivated.

At the moment with my part time freelance writing jobs and taking care of a newborn and a toddler, I don’t have the hour of extra time to do resistance training on top of my 1/2 - 1 hour of cardio. So, I figure why not incorporate some resistance training into my daily life. For one thing, my toddler weighs 30 pounds and loves to be picked up and thrown about. I know this may sound silly, but throwing him up in the arm is probably one of the best workouts for my arms.

Other ways that I try to get some resistance training in is at little spurt of 5-10 minutes I will stop and just strart doing squats or lunges. Sometimes I will even do them while holding my baby who is now over 12 pounds. I guess I figure that every little bit helps Right?

Also, almost every night I have a 10 minute routine that involves different strangth-training and resistance training exercises. I do squats (again, my favorite exercise), bicep curls, tricep kickbacks, standing ab contractions, lunges with knee lifts, overhead press, and different forms of punching (cross, jab, undercut). Even if it is just my ten minutes 6 times a week, I know that it is still building muscle and muscle means burning more fat and calories!

Photo Credit:GlenPeb@www.sxc.hu

 Last night on the episode of The Biggest Loser” only to teams were given access to the gym. The rest of the teams had to workout in other places and without the gym equipment. It was interesting as to what the trainers Bob and Jillian came up with to workout the contestants. From aerobics class-like workout to lifting lawn furniture, the contestants did it all and without a gym.

This just proved that it is possible to workout and lose weight without joining a gym. The funny thing was that the couple that fell below the yellow line as one of the teams that had the access to the gym. Utilizing the things that you have at home or are free to you is a great way to get your exercise in.

Here are some ideas on how to workout without a gym that don’t cost any money.

*Take some soup cans or water jugs and do your circuit training or weight lifting with them.

*Take a brisk walk or run depending on your physical ability.

*Go to the park and play a sport such as basketball, tennis or even extreme Frisbee

*Lift the lawn furniture like they did on The Biggest Loser

*Visit a track at your local high school or community college and do different sets of calisthenic such as lunges around the track, running backwards and skipping.  The different moves will work different parts of your body rather than just walking or running.

*Run up and down stairs at a stadium or park near your home.

*Dance to your radio and let yourself go!

Not joining a gym is no reason to not exercise and lose weight!

Research has shown that exercise can be a mood booster. Not only will exercise help you to lose weight but it will make you feel better about yourself. When you exercise your body releases endorphins, which are proven to help improve a person’s mood. Endorphins basically make your body excited. Endorphins are the chemicals in your body that make you feel good. It is almost like a natural high.

When you get your heart rate up during exercise, the body releases these endorphins due to the “fight or flight” instinct that everybody has. When we are faced with an obstacle, which includes a raised heart rate, our body makes more endorphins to either fight or flight.

So, when you are having a bad day or your feel down and depressed, those are the days that you should make it a point to exercise. That is when you need it the most. Regular daily exercise can actually make you a happier person all around. It helps to fight stress, boredom, depression, and anxiety. So, when you exercise you aren’t just helping your weight loss you are helping your mind and your whole body.

So, what are you waiting for? Go and exercise!

When trying to lose weight you should not live or die by the number on the scale. In fact, I know people who don’t even own a scale but have been successful in losing weight and keeping it off.  What works for them is judging their weight loss with their clothing. Now, this may not work if you have a lot of weight to lose, but if you are only looking to lose maybe 10-15 pounds this may be a good idea for you.

Take for example, in the past 3 weeks I have gone from one size being tight and now that are lose and I even got into a size smaller. (I have a whole range of sizes from a size 16-8 from losing weight and pregnancies) Maybe your pants fit a little loser than they did last week. This is a good sign that you are losing inches and weight.

 Also, you can take clues from your clothing for when you need to lose weight. Is your favorite pair of jeans getting a little snug? That could be a sign that you may need to get back on track with healthy eating and exercise.

Remember, you step on that scale, don’t let that judge your success. There are many factors to weight loss. Some people may lose inches and tone up their body but only shed a couple of pounds.

Photo Credit: elkojote@www.sxc.hu

I woke up this morning and there is snow on the ground again! We had a string of about 5 days were it was getting up at least into the 40’s and all the snow had melted. I was getting so excited for spring to come, as the official fist day of spring is only a little over a month away now. But, to my disappoint it is again snowing today!

I am getting so stir-crazy in the house and I just can’t wait to get outside and play with my son. Having a toddler and a newborn baby, it’s not the easiest to get around in the winter, especially in snow and cold weather so I have been couped up in the house for awhile now. I need to get out and see the sun and take  a walk and just enjoy the fresh air. Believe me that spring can not come soon enough.

Now, I know I say spring is only about a month away, but where I live spring weather may not be here until April, sometimes May. So, I may have longer to wait. Do you find yourself going stir-crazy in winter? What do you you like to do to get out of the house in winter?

Anybody that knows me, knows that  I am a Dirty Dancing fanatic. I could watch the movie over and over and not get tired of it. In fact, I have probably seen the movie at least 75 times all the way through. Well on a recent grocery shopping trip, I walked past the exercise DVDs since they were having a sale on some of them. (Not like I needed anymore!) Right there in front of me was the Dirty Dancing Official Workout From the Movie. I could not believe my eyes. I could dance like Johnny and Baby now. The DVD was only $10 on sales so how could I pass it up.

 Now, the other thing about me is that I can’t dance at all. I have no rhythm and even though I may be following what the instructor does, it doesn’t look normal! So, I got home and I couldn’t wait to try out my new DVD. I mean I could listen to some of my favorite songs and dance along, what better workout could I have?

 The Dirty Dancing DVD consists of a syllabus were they teach you the basic dance moves that will be in the dances and then they have 4 routines that you learn to the songs of “Love Man,” “Yes,” “Johnny’s Mambo,” and “Do You Love Me.” Each routine is approximately 10-15 minutes long and the syllabus is is about 10 minutes long. They even have a special section called Saturday Night Dance Challenge at the end, which is no talking and just dancing your heart out.

The first part of each chapter (each song) you learn the moves of the routine. Then you can play the actual routine with the music and instructor talking you through the dance still. Then, the third option is just the music and you dance along with the other dancers on the DVD. It’s actually really nice this way because you can always go back through the instructions before attempting the whole routine to the music.

 So, I have been doing this workout DVD on and off for about 3 weeks now and I have only gotten down the first 2 routines, and again I don’t look human doing them, but I am doing them! It’s fun to learn and you don’t even realize how much you are working out. With all the hips swaying and moving and ab pumping, you are getting a pretty good workout. So, my goal is to learn all the dance routines and have them down and memorized.

If you like dancing or you are just in love with Dirty Dancing like I am, you will enjoy this workout DVD.

Another week, another weigh in.  I can’t believe that February is almost half way over. Spring is coming soon and I can’t wait!

Here’s the stats for the week:

Woohoo, I lost another 3 pounds. I was trying to the math today, which I am horrible at, and ti reach my goal of losing all the 65 pounds of baby weight by 6 months, I have to average a weight loss of 1.5 pounds a week. That is completely doable and got me motivated to do it even faster now.

Pacificcoastnews.com

I was reading an article about Tori Spelling saying how much easier it was the second time around to lose the weight and that she didn’t have to try, it just fell off. Those types of articles make me so mad. Have you seen how skinny Tori Spelling is now. She is actually one of the celebrities that have turned sickly skinny. There is no way the weight just fell off. I hat e when celebrities say that the weight just fell off, they are giving young girls and woman such a bad influence. When you are overweight, you feel bad enough about yourself, but then these celebrities come and are like it’s so easy to lose weight. I don’t have to do anything. They should just keep their mouths shut. Just my little vent for the day!

Last year TLC had a special with a guy named Paul McKenna who claimed he could make anybody thin. Well, he has released a book called I Can Make You Thin and I decided to check it out from the library. It is a really quick read and the basis of what he says in the book is really quite easy to understand also.

He gives 4 golden rules to losing weight and keeping it off. It is not a diet, in fact he says it is the total opposite of a diet and that diet only make you fat in the end. I won’t give away exactly what the golden rules are, but let’s just say if you wanted ice cream and cake for dinner, you could have it. His whole basis of the book is that diets put your body into starvation mode and that your body will tell you when you need to eat. Out bodies are programmed to let us know when you are actually hungry, we just have to listen.

He has success stories of people losing a hundred or so pounds in the book and I remember from the TLC special that he had people on the show that had lost a drastic amount of weight following his advice. He also points out that you need to start thinking like a thin person. They are never ashamed of what they eat, they eat what they want and they eat when they are hungry.

After reading this book, I was going to try it as it sounded great. I could eat what I want and still lose weight? But, there is this deep down voice in my head saying, “No, you can’t have that.” Having been on “diets” forever now I have programmed my mind to not allow myself to have the things I want and he actually talks about this in the book. Until I can fully give myself into this new program, it will not work. I am trying to work on it, as I know that I can’t go through my entire life depriving myself of the foods I actually want to eat.  So, I am going to listen to his hypnosis CD and see if that helps that little voice in my head go away. I will keep you updated with the progress.

If this program sounds interesting to you, check out I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna or his website at http://www.paulmckenna.com/.

After I went grocery shopping two days ago, my husband turns to me and says,  ”We need to buy more meat. All you buy is chicken.” Now, I do still make meat meals such as meatloaf, meatball subs, and taco meat for salads and even pot roasts. What other meat does he want? The thing is that I do make a lot of chicken. It’s healthier and it’s easier to prepare in a healthy way. I guess he is getting sick of the chicken already. We are not big fish eaters, so chicken is like the diet staple for me. How do I convince my husband though to eat 3 times a week?

 I tried to look up different chicken recipes online, but there are only so many that are  considered healthy or I could tweak to make them healthy. I’m not going to make chicken and then add a cream sauce or tons of cheese to it. It defeats the purpose. So, what’t your favorite healthy chicken recipe? Do you have a chicken recipe that is unique and not like everything else. Because I really don’t want to have to make two meals at night because my husband stops eating chicken!