Week in Review

• Saturday: worked overtime on the night shift Friday night, so I was asleep until 12:30pm as I got off work at 6am.  Went to the Chinese buffet with a couple friends, then went to Kohl’s and bought 2 new SMALLER bras (I’m loving the fact that my boobs are fading away…maybe that makes me a weirdo, but I don’t care).  Then I came back home, chilled for a little bit, then got dressed and headed to the gym.  I did the treadmill hills workout, skipped the elliptical because I was already at 10K steps for the day.  For strength, I did decline bench press, fulcrum rows with a 45# plate (+ the bar), then deadlifts and walking lunges.  I finished it off with a 2000m row.  Didn’t go fast as my abs are still fairly sore from the workout I did on Thursday and my back kept cramping.  Overall, great workout!

• Sunday: I woke up stupid early for no reason that I could figure out.  I was super tired when I went to bed Saturday night at about 10:30 and then awake by 3am.  So, I did laundry and started my food prep for the week.  But, because I was awake so early, that meant I could start my run early!  So, I was out the door by 6:30 for 10 miles.  I did the route that I started to do last week when I ended up doing 13.1 miles, except I didn’t do the extra miles, of course. 

• Monday: I’m working overtime on the night shift this night.  I went to the gym and did the 30 minute treadmill hills workout.  Then I hit the weights!  I did TRX tricep extensions and TRX chest press & superman combos, then I did leg extension & curls and the leg press machine.  I wasn’t able to finish with my now standard 2000m row because I had run out of time.

• Tuesday: as mentioned in Monday’s excerpt, I worked overtime on the night shift Monday night, so no run or workout on this day.  All I did was make sure to get my 10K steps.

• Wednesday: gym day!  I started off with a 65 minute run on the treadmill for 6 miles.  Then I went to strength training.  I did push press and then squats, since I was at the squat rack anyway.  Then I moved over to the dumbbells and did front & side arm raises and finished it all off with side lunges.

• Thursday: logged a 4 mile easy run.  Nothing special about this one…just ran easy and didn’t concern myself with pace. 

• Friday: worked overtime on the night shift Thursday night, so nothing beyond my 10K steps for the day.

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Last week, I only lost 1 pound, BUT I lost .7% of body fat.  That’s awesome.  My goal this week was to lose at least another pound, more preferably, of course.  But at least 1 pound.  I also wanted to keep up with the fat % loss.  So, I did my best to really watch my calorie intake this week and switched up my breakfasts and tried my best to add more protein to my diet.  For breakfasts this week, I had a thing called zoatmeal.  You put shredded zucchini in your oatmeal and it’s sort of like viscous zucchini bread.  This is apparently quite popular with bodybuilders who don’t eat a LOT of veggies, so this is a way they can get more veggies in their diet.  You can add fruit (fresh and/or dried), brown sugar (I use a sweetener/brown sugar blend to save calories), chia seeds, cocoa, or whatever you like in your oatmeal.  I put a whole small shredded zucchini in my oatmeal each day.  There was more zucchini than oatmeal.  Ha.  I also sautéed some chopped apples in coconut oil and then coated them with cinnamon.  I used about ¾ cup of the apples, ½ cup cashew milk, and 1 tbsp of the brown sugar/sweetener blend to my zoatmeal each day.

I did some food prepping on Sunday.  I made a Mexican casserole that each yielded 10 servings, so that’s 2 weeks’ worth of lunches!  Today I plan to cook another casserole that will also yield 10 servings.  That will save me so much money over the next month!  For snacks this week, I did something called “cookie dough yogurt.”  It’s a 21-day Fix-approved recipe.  It’s 1 container of plain Greek yogurt (I use the 0% fat), 1 tbsp PB, 1 tbsp honey, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tbsp choco chips and a pinch of sea salt.  This was a great way for me to add more protein to my diet this week.  Then, my dinners were the Sargento Balanced Breaks again (cheese, nuts and dried fruit).

Last week I took and posted a picture of my mid-section (abs).  I’ll use this as a base and hopefully in a few weeks, I’ll see a drastic difference and I will post an updated picture and do a “before & during” progress photo of my abs.

I’ve lost enough weight that my bras are now super big on me.  I have officially gone from a D to a C!  That makes me very happy because I hate being large breasted.  To me, the smaller my top side, the better.  They have never bothered me at all when I run, I just don’t like them to be big.  Not really sure how to explain the why, so I won’t even try.  Most ladies with larger breasts will understand…I know some really like their large breasts.  Everyone is different and that is what makes us all awesome!

Anyway, let’s move on to what I’m sure you’re all waiting for…my weigh ins!

I was up the first part of this week, which is par for the course.  I did debate about whether or not to delete my initial weigh in from Monday where the first one showed me at 170.1 (but decided that for full disclosure, I should leave it), but then I have a movement (sorry, but it’s true) and reweighed myself and I was at 168.1.  Up 2-ish pounds is better than 4-ish any day in my book.  If I said that I’m not even a little, tiny bit disappointed that yesterday I was at 163 and today I’m at 164.3, I’d be lying.  But, I’m still down 2.1 pounds this week and that is awesome!  I’m down a total of 22.2 pounds and 4.8% body fat since May 1^st…that’s just 7 weeks!  Something I was really excited about this week was my body fat…I’m at 30.7%!  I’d like to set down my new overall goal.  Body weight aside, I want to get down to 22-24% body fat.  That in mind, I looked up some infographics for what different body fat percentages look like on women.  I have a feeling that when I hit my body fat % goal that I will be below 160 pounds.  And that’s fine.  I’ve already said I do not want to go below 150 because I think that would be too difficult to maintain and this journey is about getting to maintenance phase.  It’s fine to struggle on my way there, but I don’t want to struggle greatly once I’ve gotten to goal.