Weekly Recap

In light of last week’s small weight gain, I’d like to take another moment (in addition to what I said in last week’s recap post) and remind everyone that just because you gain some weight doesn’t mean it’s a “bad” weight gain.  This was proven to me after I did some math with my body weight and my body fat %.  I lost almost an entire pound of fat while gaining 2 whole pounds of muscle.  That’s pretty freaking awesome in my book.  And it just makes me want to continue to rock my workouts and improve my body.  So I made sure to keep up the intensity with this week’s workouts.

• Saturday: started off with the Thin Mint Sprint.  I was originally signed up to do the 10K but there’s no way I’m walking 6.2 miles in a boot.  No way.  So I emailed them and got myself dropped down to the 5K.  The 5K was an out-and-back route and the 10K was the 5K done twice.  As I was out there on the course, I took note of the fact that not a whole lot of people were doing a second out-and-back, which meant not a whole lot of people had signed up to do the 10K.  I will sign up for this race again next year, and I will register for the 10K again, but I hope to actually DO the 10K next year.  If the race field is like it was this year, I think I have a good chance of an AG award in the 10K next year!  Heck, even if I decide to just do the 5K.  3^rd place in my AG for this year did it in 29-ish minutes.  I can knock out a 5K, if properly trained, in less than that easily.  Well, maybe not “easily,” but you get the idea.  Haha.

On top of the 5K, I did go to the gym and did my machines workout (upper body, abs and the abductor/adductor machines).

• Sunday: To start this day off, since I didn’t get the swim done on Saturday, I made sure to go to the gym and get my swim done this day.  This week the time bumped up to 32 minutes or 1300 meters, whichever takes longer…and I got the 1300 done!  But, it took me 34 minutes.  It’s all good, though! 

SUNDAY FUNDAY TIME!!!!  Since even with the addition of more exercises last Sunday this workout still doesn’t take me 60 minutes to complete, I did some more hunting around on the internet and found even more exercises to add to the mix!  October 4^th is No More Stolen Sisters Day.  This is primarily a Canadian awareness day, but now that I know about it, it’s something that means a lot to me.  What is No More Stolen Sisters Day?  It’s a day to raise awareness of the propensity of aboriginal/native Canadian and American women to be 3 times more likely to be a victim of violence and sexual assault by a perpetrator NOT of their own race.  Being just shy of ¼ Cherokee decent myself, this is a cause that does hit home a little bit for me.  So, I dedicated this day’s Sunday Funday workout to north American native women with the hopes that they stay strong in the face of adversity.

Later in the afternoon, I walked for 3 miles around my apartment complex.

• Monday: I had my appointment with my doctor and he said I can take the boot off!!!!  To celebrate my liberation, I drove to the Riverside & Lamar area of Austin and walked just over 4 miles around LadyBird Lake hike and bike trail.  Later on, I went to the gym for my freestyle workout, buuuuuuut, I waited until like 5:30 to go to the gym and there were far, far too many people in the personal training area (where I do said freestyle workout) that I wouldn’t have been able to do the exercises I like to do without hitting someone on accident or us being in each others’ ways.  So, since I was cleared from the boot by my doctor this day, I had already decided I was going to do the elliptical for 20 minutes, so I just extended it a little and did 3 miles on the elliptical.

• Tuesday: [mental] therapy day again!  I did my usual walking pre- and post-appointment and exceeded my basic 10,000 steps for the day, then went to the gym to make up for not being able to do my freestyle workout on Monday.  I started with 20 minutes (1.8 miles) on the elliptical, then did my workout with the addition of resistance band side steps.

I go into a kind of half-squat position when I do these and am not straight legged like the guy in the picture.  I also added non-weighted squats on the BOSU ball.  I put the ball part down and stood on the platform for the squats.  I also decided to add an ab exercise.  I used the adjustable cable machine in the personal training area and did woodchoppers with it.  To round off this super active day, I swam 1300 meters in 32minutes…2 minutes faster than Sunday’s swim of the same distance.

• Wednesday: I went to the gym and started things off with spin class!  I haven’t taken a spin class in years and the last one I took was crap.  The instructor wasn’t very charismatic and didn’t inspire me to push myself, so I didn’t get much out of that class.  This day’s spin class, however, was GREAT!  The instructor was amazing and fun and kept up a constant chatter.  Loved it!  Then, I did my machines workout at the gym today.  Now that I’m out of the boot, I can add back in some lower body machines.  So, in addition to all the upper body machines I’ve been doing (plus the ab machine and the abductor/adductor machines, of course), I added the calf raise, leg extension, leg curl, leg press, and kickbacks on the leg press machine.  However, I probably won’t do the kickbacks in the future.  It just didn’t hit my glute muscles like I wanted it to.  I’ll have to find another exercise for that.  Any ideas? 

• Thursday: I took this day as an “active rest day.”  What does that mean?  I means I didn’t do any exercise that could be considered as “strenuous.”  I was going to do the elliptical and then swim 1300 meters.  But, I decided that I wanted this to be an active rest day so that meant the swim was out.  So I just did the elliptical for 65 minutes and 5.6 miles.

• Friday: I went to the gym and hit the elliptical for 65 minutes and 5.4 miles.  After that, I did a hodge podge workout consisting of these exercises:

• BOSU squats

• BOSU lunges

• front arm raises

• side arm raises

• woodchoppers

• side bends

• resistance band side steps

• TRX ab tucks

• TRX pistol squats

• TRX tricep extensions

• hammer curls

I really love this workout and will definitely be putting it into rotation along with my full body machines workout and my freestyle gym workout.  Oh and then there’s my home workout that is kettlebells and bodyweight exercises and pull ups and stairs.  So that’s 4 separate strength training workouts!

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Last Friday, I told you I went to the State Fair of Texas.  I had never been before and, in fact, hadn’t been to ANY state fair since I was in high school during the summer between my junior and senior years.  Not to reveal just how old I actually am, but that was 20 years ago.  I don’t remember the Oregon state fair being so obnoxious.  There were so many vendors of services and products that were beyond pushy and were just pissing me off and making the fair less and less fun that it already was to start off with.  One thing I did, for sure, enjoy was the food.  Me and my friend Sam started our food adventure with Slovacek’s Czech Stop on the way to the fair and got some fancy kolaches (so glad this place is an hour drive away from me or I’d be fat again in no time…seriously, if you’re driving in Texas and you’re on IH-35 between Dallas and Austin, I highly recommend you stop and get a couple kolaches!).  At the fair, I indulged in a small piece of some of the best bread pudding I’ve ever eaten, a piece of fried cheesecake, some kettlecorn and a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut bacon cheeseburger.  I kind of regret the burger just because it really wasn’t all that great.  I mean, it was GOOD, just not great like I was thinking it would be.    After all that indulging, you better believe I was soooooooo freaking happy to get back to my low calorie, low carb, intermittent fasting way of eating come Saturday.  Oh and not to mention the heartburn I had to deal with post-indulgence.  Ugh.  Just more motivation to keep eating the way I’ve been eating lately.

On Saturday I had a little continuation of the indulging.  I had way too many slices of pumpkin spice bread and a double serving of homemade crockpot beef brisket.  After that, I actually and truly was ready to be back to my usual restriction and schedule of eating.  I know that one or even two days of over eating do not spell disaster or backsliding.  The failure to nip that trend in the bud and the allowing of it to continue are what spells disaster.  And that I definitely will NOT be doing.  Despite the readiness to be back on plan, cravings were really difficult this week.  I struggled for most of the week with snacking on things I “shouldn’t have been” snacking on.  I mean, no junk, just extra calories from nuts and dried fruit mostly.  I never went over my 1550 calorie cap for any given day, but still…I do really like to stay below 1300.  As the week went on, my cravings did lessen and get much easier to deal with.

I want to say that this week, after last week’s gain, even though I was like 90+% okay with it (after doing the math), still bothered me on some lower level.  I want to say that for the majority of this week, every time I looked in the mirror I looked bloated.  I have no idea if this was just my mind messing with me, but it really got to me.  It really did a number on my self-esteem this week and I didn’t like it.  I really hate that I’m so sensitive to this kind of stuff.  I really want to hit my goal weight.  I was hoping to hit my goal weight before starting to really hit the muscle building process.  I was even thinking I might drop my goal weight by 5 pounds, but with last week’s apparent 2 lbs of muscle gain, I don’t think that’s really achievable.  And I’m okay with that.  I just want to be the best version of myself that I can be.  I do really love the look of strong muscles on myself.  But I am finding it really difficult to cut the fat off my body.  Maybe being out of the boot and actually being able to do cardio will help with that.  We’ll see.

Also, SHIN SPLINT!  Yes, I left the “s” off the end of that on purpose.  Why?  Because I only have one.  My left shin area is just fine, but my right shin is definitely…splinty.  I know it’s because all the stabilizing muscles in my right leg are severely lacking at the moment.  The shin splint will resolve itself eventually.  I probably should break out my lacrosse ball and do some fascia smoothing along my shin.  I should also probably do the homework that Airrosti had me do while I was seeing them a few years ago right as I was starting to run originally.  I know doing those 2 things will help immensely.

And now to the scale! 

Woohoooooooooo!  I lost 2 pounds and .3% body fat this week!  I am super happy with this.  I am now just 3.2 lbs away from my goal weight!!!

What's Cookin'

What the what?  I haven't done one of these in a while.  I've been eating really simply the last few months, so nothing I thought would be really good for sharing.  I might rethink that.  I've recently found a crockpot brisket recipe that I love and would like to share with you.  And I've also discovered how to make healthy homemade chicken nuggets AND made from scratch, low to no sugar dipping sauces for them!  But, all that is for other posts.  Today, we are talking pumpkin!

There are these great little pumpkins, called sugar pumpkins, that your local grocery stores should be selling by now.  The other day, I bought 4 of them.  After weighing them and discovering that half of one would yield approximately 800g of pumpkin flesh, I decided that each pumpkin would be 2 days worth of dinners for me.  I found a recipe that told me cut the pumpkin in half, remove the seeds and pulp, then cut it in slices like you would a cantaloupe.  It then had me spray the slices with cooking spray and sprinkle with spices.  I used cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.  What came out was "meh" at best.  So, I adapting this recipe (basically, all I kept was the oven temp) and this is what I came up with...

SARA'S BAKED PUMPKIN

Ingredients:
• 1 sugar pumpkin (3-4 pounds whole)
• coconut oil
• pumpkin pie spice
• stevia

Directions:
• preheat oven to 400°
• cut stem off pumpkin and then cut in half.  scoop out seeds and pulp, set seeds aside (for next recipe)
• rub all exposed pumpkin flesh with coconut oil and sprinkle with the pumpkin pie spice
• place pumpkin halves face down on a cooking sheet lined with aluminum foil or parchment paper
• bake pumpkin for 1 hour
• remove from oven when done, remove the pumpkin flesh from its skin (it should really just fall out with very little coaxing from a fork or spoon), sprinkle with stevia to taste and a little extra pumpkin pie spice.  mash and enjoy!

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SARA'S ROASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS, pt 1

Ingredients:
• seeds yielded from 1 sugar pumpkin, cleaned of pulp
• pumpkin pie spice
• stevia
• olive oil

Directions:
• preheat oven to 300°
• boil cleaned seeds in salty water for about 10 minutes, drain and dry
• place seeds in a bowl and add olive oil and pumpkin pie spice, stir to coat well
• arrange seeds on a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil or parchment paper
• bake for 40 minutes, occasionally stir the seeds so they bake evenly
• remove from oven and sprinkle with stevia

SARA'S ROASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS, pt 2

Ingredients:
• seeds yielded from 1 sugar pumpkin ,cleaned of pulp
• paprika
• cayenne pepper
• olive oil

Directions:
• preheat oven to 300°
• boil cleaned seeds in salty water for about 10 minutes, drain and dry
• place seeds in a bowl and add olive oil, paprika and cayenne pepper, stir to coat well
• arrange seeds on a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil or parchment paper
• bake for 40 minutes, occasionally stir the seeds so they bake evenly

SARA'S ROASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS, pt 3

Ingredients:
• seeds yielded from 1 sugar pumpkin ,cleaned of pulp
• cocoa powder
• sea salt
• stevia
• olive oil

Directions:
• preheat oven to 300°
• boil cleaned seeds in salty water for about 10 minutes, drain and dry
• place seeds in a bowl and add olive oil, cocoa powder and sea salt, stir to coat well
• arrange seeds on a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil or parchment paper
• bake for 40 minutes, occasionally stir the seeds so they bake evenly
• remove from oven and sprinkle with stevia

5 Things

5 Things That Are Great About My Life Right This Second:

1. I got cleared from the boot at my doctor’s today so now I can start working on building up the stabilizing muscles in my right leg and getting my legs prepped to start running again!

2. I have gotten almost all of my sewing projects done and should have them all done by Sunday night.

3. I have a wonderful job that lets me accrue sick time so that when I fracture my ankle and have to take a month off of work to get better, I still get paid (just no overtime…oh well). 

4. I’ve discovered intermittent fasting and that it works fabulously for me!  And, part 2, I’m only about 5 pounds from my goal weight (as of this past weekend’s weigh in).

5. I have an amazing family and great friends!

I thought it would be great, after seeing another blogger post her list of 5 things that were great in her life right this second, for me to post my list of 5 things.  Take a second and think of 5 things that are great in your life right this second.  Post your list in the comments if you like, post them on your own blog, or just write them down for yourself to look at when you're feeling a little down and need a pick-me-up.

My Racing Future

I’ve been doing quite a lot of thinking about my future in running races.  Don’t get all defeatist there, I’m not saying I’m done with running races once I’m done with the races I’m already registered for.  Nope.  No way.  I LOOOOOOOVE running races!  No, what I’m talking about is what kind of races I want to do.  For starters, next year I want to get into triathlons.  I have plans to do a sprint triathlon in March, the St. Patrick’s Sprint Triathlon.  They do a 300 meter swim in an indoor pool, then a 12 mile bike ride and a 5k run.  I think that’s a great one for me to start with!  I also want to do 2 Olympic distance triathlons next year, the Tri For Glory that happens in July in San Marcos, TX and the TriRock Austin that happens in September. 

As far as races that are strictly running, I’m thinking I’m going to back off on the marathons.  Last year, when I was training for my first marathon, I was super excited because it was all new to me.  I fell in love with the challenge of running 4-5 times a week for an average of 35 miles a week, which is really not much because apparently most people training for a marathon run 40-80 miles per week.  Geez.  I mean, I love running, but I would have absolutely no free time to do anything other than running if I ran that much.  Anyway, I was initially excited about training for more marathons this season, but when it came down to it, I was burnt out.  I couldn’t get myself kicked into gear.  And then, when I did get myself kicked into gear, I hurt myself and took myself completely out of the running game for 6 weeks…leaving me with just 6 weeks to train for my first marathon of the season.  Not much time at all.  But, it can work.  I will make it work.  But, I am not going to be running more than 3 days a week.  I won’t be creating any new PRs this season, that’s for sure.

My game plan for the marathon next month is to do my best to do a run a mile, walk a quarter to a half mile, run a mile, and repeat, hopefully landing myself with a sub-7 hour finish so I don’t DNF.  But, honestly, I could do a brisk casual walk and finish within the 7 hour time limit because the pace to get a 6:50:00 finish is 15:50 per mile.  I have the same game plan for my December marathon, but I’ll have a friend to do it with in December so it won’t be so lonely going slow.  Ha!

So far, the races I’m registered for are:

• Austin Halloween Half Marathon, 10/24

• South Padre Island Marathon, 11/14

• Mustache Dache, 11/15

• San Antonio Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon, 12/6

• Chocoholic Frolic, 2/7

• Austin Marathon, 2/14

• Austin 10/20, 4/3

• Cap10k, 4/10

On top of those races, I will be registering for:

• Turkey Trot, 11/26

• Jingle Bell 5k, 12/13

• 3M Half Marathon, 1/24

• Bend Half Marathon, 4/24

These are the ones I know the dates for.  I’ll be for sure registering for the Sister’s Better Half Marathon, IF when they post their 2016 date and it’s the day before Bend.  Other races I’m waiting for dates to be posted include:

• Autism Speaks 8k

• Stand Up 5k

• Sunshine Run 10k

• Bunny Run 5k

• Alamo Half Marathon

• Biggest Loser Half Marathon

• Wounded Warrior Half Marathon

I want to do either the Army Marathon or Half Marathon.  I have not decided which I want to do.  I really liked the marathon when I did it this year.  This is going to be one I decide pretty much last minute as to which distance I want to do just because I don’t know.  I mean, I have the Austin Marathon 3 weeks prior to it, so I’d already be trained to run the full if I decide that’s what I want to do. 

I know that this is a LOT of races and most people think I’m crazy and aren’t afraid to tell me so that I run this many races.  But I just love it.  I love running races.  The fact that I’ve got so many races on the horizon helps to keep me motivated when I don’t want to do my training runs.

My long term plans for racing are that I don’t plan to run any marathons after this season for a while.  I *might* run the South Padre Island marathon again next season OR I *might* run Austin again in 2017, but I just don’t know.  IF I run one next season, it will ONLY be one.  OOOOOOOR, I might just do an ultra next season and call it good.  There’s the Bandera 50K in January that I really want to do.  I have plans to do the Princess Weekend and Glass Slipper Challenge in Disney World in 2017.  A friend and I have talked about doing it together.  I’ve decided to wait until I’m 49 to attempt a BQ so that I can run Boston just a few months after turning 50.  I think that would be a great way to celebrate being 50, don’t you?

Also, a brief point on my long term goals for triathlons.  I am contemplating attempting a Half Ironman in 2017. 

Overall, I’m trying to let go of time goals and get back to just enjoying things.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to chase time goals for the 5ks and 10ks I run.  I’m still going to do my best to get age group awards at the smaller races I run.

Weekly Recap

I was pleasantly surprised with last week’s 2.4 pound loss.  I didn’t know what to expect, but I know I didn’t expect 2.4 pounds!  I think I was expecting like a half or just one pound.  Which I would have been completely okay with, just so’s you know.  Honestly, I can’t believe that I’m this close to my goal weight and still pulling big numbers on the scale most weigh ins.  It partially makes me wonder if 170 should be my goal weight.  Maybe I should change to 165?  I’ll decide when I get to 170, though.  I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew by changing my goal weight prematurely.  You know?

Anyway, as my goal weight looms on the horizon, pretty much within my reach…if I stand on my tippy toes, that is…I can’t let myself slack off.  Not even a little.  Now is the time to really buckle down and push myself.  I really wanted to make sure my workouts really counted this week.

• Saturday: met my friends Neetu and Amanda at the Indian buffet for lunch and ate my entire daily calorie allowance while we were there.  I don’t regret it.  I pretty much don’t eat out anymore and when I do, I still try to follow the guidelines I’ve set up for myself with calorie amounts, quality proteins, fresh and unprocessed foods, low carb, etc.  Splurges just aren’t much a part of my eating routine anymore.  And I don’t mind whatsoever.  So, since I ate my entire calorie allowance for lunch and it was 2pm when we got done at the restaurant, I wanted to make sure that if I ate again later in the day that I would more than have the exercise calories to cover what I’d eaten and still have a deficit for the day.  I went to the gym and I did my machines workout (pretty much all the upper body machines, the 3-way ab machine, and I added the abductor and adductor machines too) followed by a 1200 meter swim in 31 minutes.  That’s ¾ of a mile, yo!

• Sunday: walked my 2^nd 5K this day.  Fight Like A Girl 5K benefiting melanoma cancer survivors and research.  Since I registered for this pre-injury and knew it was going to be a super small local race, I paid the extra $10 for a timing chip with visions of age group placement floating around my mind.  So, obviously, those visions had to get thrown straight out of the window.  My new goal was to beat my Run With The Heroes 5K time of 52:57.  I power walked the FLAG course (which was over half cross country style!) and finished in 43:34!  BOOM!  There were 35 timed participants and I was, of course, dead last.  There were 5 ladies in my age group.  3^rd place finished in 32:00 minutes.  Dude, I could have smoked her had I been able to run!  Even untrained, I can run a 5K faster than 32:00!!!  Next year!

This is Sunday and just a 5K powerwalk wasn’t going to cut it!  IT’S SUNDAY FUNDAY Y’ALL!!!  I found a few more exercises to add to my repertoire of exercises!  YAY!  I really enjoy my Sunday funday workouts.  I honestly think they’re my favorite workouts.  It took me 51 minutes to complete this installation of my Sunday funday workout.  I’d really like it to be at least 60 minutes.  So, I would like to find 3 more exercises to add to the mix.  I have one already that would go with one round, so I just need 3 more exercises to go with the other 3 rounds.

• Monday: so, I decided to call it the “freestyle” workout…at least until something better comes to mind.  I’ve been wanting to add the exercise where you hold a slam ball out in front of you while doing a wide-legged squat and when you stand up you toss the slam ball above you against the wall and then catch it and repeat.  The last couple times I intended to add this, other people were using all the slam balls, so I wasn’t able to do it.  But today I was able to do them!  I also changed up my TRX exercises a little by combining them into one move.  So much more difficult, so of course I like it way better!  I decided on my way from physical therapy to the gym that I was going to wait until Tuesday to swim.

• Tuesday: [mental] therapy day!  I think I cut it too close with parking at Whole Foods last week…mainly because when I returned to get my car, I discovered that there was now a security guard in the parking area.  Good thing he hadn’t been there when I parked!  So, I decided to go to a park down the road from my therapist’s office.  I walked over 4.5 miles between my pre- and post-appointment walking.  By this time, it was almost 1:30pm and time to break my fast, so I went home and had my eggs and waited a little bit before heading to the gym for my swim.  I got 1200 meters done in 30 minutes…a minute faster than Saturday.  When I got to the gym and got changed into my suit and then out to the pool, I discovered that there was already 3 people in the pool (there are 3 lanes in the pool at my gym).  I sat on the bench to patiently wait for one of them to get done so I could get in.  The guy in one of the outside lanes noticed me sitting there waiting and said we could share his lane.  YAY!  So, for the first 400 meters, I swam in his lane until the guy in the next lane over finished and got out of the pool, so I switched over to that lane to finish out my remaining 800 meters. 

• Wednesday: I went to the gym and I did my machines workout.  I’m really trying to push myself with the weights I’m lifting.  What my doctor said, even if he was just joking (which I’m not 100% sure he was), it’s still unsettling to think that some of my weight loss IS muscle loss.  So, I did my best to make sure that the last 1-2 reps of each set were difficult, but totally doable, for me.

• Thursday: went to the gym and got my 1200 meters swam in 31 minutes.  My shoulders and my biceps were both sore and tired from Wednesday’s workout since I added more weight than I’ve been using.  I was originally thinking I might preview a workout DVD or 2 and see if I could do it in my boot, but ultimately decided against it.  Went for a 4.25 mile walk to drop off a package to my mom at the post office.  Attempted to snoop on the construction site in the lot next to my apartments while on this walk, but the sign I thought might say what kind of construction is happening just had their permits for the sewage and waste water.  Bah!

• Friday: went to the Texas State Fair with my friend Sam.  So, no workout, but LOTS of walking!  

FitBit surprised me with a new badge this week!  The London Underground for passing the 250 “lifetime” miles mark.  I say “lifetime” because it really only applies to the time I’ve had my FitBit account.  It’s still really cool to earn new badges!

I had some issues with urges this week.  I had so many moments where I just wanted to stuff my face.  I didn’t.  But that’s not the point.  The point is what I’ve said a few times over the last month or so.  While the urges to binge and obsessing and anxiety over food in general have lessened to the point of being mostly non-existent, that doesn’t mean they’re gone and will never rear their ugly heads again.  That’s what happened this week.  I had to try really hard to distract myself and keep myself from binging on the whole wheat blueberry banana bread I made that, while low calorie and other than the sugar from the fruit was sugar free, is not something I need to eat more than one serving of a day…at least not without negating another food I would have otherwise have eaten that day.  I try to eat the foods I eat slowly and savor them and pretend like I’m eating a larger quantity of food.  I can’t eat large quantities of food as it is, but it’s good to pretend and trick that part of my brain that just wants to binge and stuff my face until my stomach hurts in an attempt to satiate my emotional “hunger.” 

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I think I did a really good job again this week.  This week, since I went to the State Fair on Friday and there was a very high chance of eating foods that aren’t exactly “on plan.”  So, I opted to do this week’s weigh in plus, since it’s the beginning of a new month, my new measurements and progress photos, yesterday instead of today.  (back to Saturday next week for my weigh ins)  Something that has me a bit unnerved with this time losing weight is that, in the past, I’ve always been able to tell based on how my body feels to me (not by running my hands up and down my skin, just how it feels to be in my body…if that makes any sense at all) whether or not I had lost weight or even gained weight.  However, THIS time, I am not having those feelings.  It’s so frustrating because weigh in mornings are now a total and complete surprise to me and I have no clue as to how I might fare on the scale.  So, I get very nervous the night before my weigh ins now.  That said, let’s look at my new progress photos first!

I have to say…I am super happy with how my body looks.  Seriously.  I’m not sucking in even one little tiny bit in these pics.  They are at natural rest.  My stomach looks fantastic!!!

Next, let’s move on to my current measurements and compare them to my previous measurements.

• neck: 13.3" (-.2")

• chest: 34" (-.5")

• upper arm : 13" (-.5")

• waist : 34" (-1")

• hips: 38.75" (-.75")

• thigh: 24.5" (-.5)

• calf : 16.25" (same)

The total lost since the first Saturday of September is 3.45 inches!  This is fantastic!  If I can lose another inch to inch and a half off each my hips and my waist, I think all will be right in the world for me.  I think that will take care of the last little bits of lumps that I find hard to look at on myself in that area of my body.

Last, but most definitely NOT least, what does the scale say about me this week?

I’m UP 1.2 pounds.  But, you know what?  I’m okay with it.  Why?  Because, 1) I’m down 3.45 inches in the last 4 weeks and 2) my body fat % went down this week by .7%.  What exactly does that mean?  Let me break it down for ya.  We’ll start with last week.  I weighed in at 174 with 37% body fat.  That equals 64.4 lbs of fat and 109.6 lbs of muscle, organs and bones.  This week, I weighed in at 175.2 with 36.3% body fat.  That equals 63.6 lbs of fat and 111.6 lbs of muscle, organs and bones.  To break it down even a little more, that means I LOST .8 lb of fat and GAINED 2 lbs of muscle!!!  WOOHOO!  That’s a victory if I ever saw one.  I GAINED 2 LBS OF MUSCLE IN 1 WEEK!!!!!  That’s got me so excited!  This just goes to show that before you go getting upset that you’re up a little bit on the scale doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a BAD gain.  It could be a good gain.  I’ve been making a real effort with my strength training lately and it’s starting to show and that makes me H-A-P-P-Y.

So, I’m going to do my best to knock my workouts out of the park again this next week and see if I can get that body fat % to go down a little bit more.   I’m really liking how my biceps are looking and I’d like to get them to a more defined look.  I’d like to get a very small amount of definition in my ab area.  No, I’m not going for a 6 pack…heck no.  Do you have any idea how much work that is?  For starters, I’d have to get down to the low 20’s for body fat %...yea…no…and then I’d have to MAINTAIN that.  No thank you.  I’m okay with a slightly “soft” appearance.  I just want people to look at me and say, “yea, I can tell she lifts, brah.”  Hahaha!