Day 223 (day 6 / week 32)

I am so proud of myself today! I got up uber early to exercise and did it! I was out of the house around 4:45am and I walked up and down my street shadow boxing with my sculpting gloves on and with 2 lb weights (I think for a total of 3-4 lbs or so). I really liked walking up and down the street. I have no idea how far it was, but I will map it later tonight to find out (I'm pretty curious although it probably isn't very far).

I started out doing alternate overhead shoulder presses, then that turned into alternate bicep curls, and then I did the cross, hook, undercut variation from Turbo Jam that Chalene loves for us to do so much (I love them too).

It feels so great. I feel awake, I have energy and I am happy because I got in 25 minutes of exercise, burning 338 calories, before 5:15 am. Sweet! God blessed me with a good night sleep (thank you Lord!) and with the motivation to do it.

What better than to start your day off with a blessing :). I should bless you guys with my walk and take a picture of the view I have of some of the casinos from our street...really beautiful!

Have a good day everyone! If I do more when I get home (which I plan to) I will post it here! Off to get ready for work!

UPDATE: Not sure what it's worth, but I parked in the farthest place I could find today and walked about a 1/2 mile just to and from my car today (over 1000 steps and yes, I actually counted them! lol). Not much, but it's something and the best way I could find to incorporate exercise into my day. It took me about 15 minutes total (in a dress and heels). It's 8:30 pm and I am bushed, so I am calling it a night so I can get up early again to exercise. I don't have to be in as early (1/2 hr later than today), but I am going to wake up at 4:30am again, just so that I can exercise longer. I still don't know how far I walked this morning. Maybe I will figure it out tomorrow.

I can do this. I am a star.

Day 216 (day 6 / week 31)

I got up *really* early this morning (5am!), to exercise. I can honestly say that this would have never happened before.

I did Turbo Jam's "Burn" workout (from Learn and Burn), that way if time runs out for me today, it's my fail safe and I will at least have this to fall back on. I will update it here when I do something more later today!

Gotta go get ready to leave!

Make today count!

I can do this. I am a star.

day 115 (day 3 / week 17)

My hubby made turkey bacon while I was working out, and that is all I smell now lol. I'm gonna make this quick...bacon here I come!

I exercised somewhat early today. I am going to do like Ellie suggested and make waking up early a goal. I was a little turned off by the idea because I feel like I'm being a (bacon) goal whore! I think it's sad that I have to make a goal in order to do something. It's sad but true (I heart bacon) so I'm holding to it, and I created another goal on sparkpeople and made "waking up early" a goal. Seeing a box unchecked should be enough motivation for me to wake up early (and eat bacon) (lol so sad but true--I have to make a game out of it lol).

Anyway I (smell bacon) did Cardio Party Mix 1 today (43 minutes). I thought it was pretty funny that Chalene's sister (forgot her name), who is in the Turbo Jam video's that I do, and happens to workout in WOWY --I see her in there from time to time (when I'm not thinking about bacon), well she won the prize yesterday--$300 cash! I don't know if I mentioned that about WOWY--it's called the million dollar body game and when you workout in a live WOWY session, you are entered into the contest. I was in WOWY with her yesterday--she finished 2 people ahead of me, and was in there 1 person ahead of me. Anyway I thought it was funny :).

Ok enough of that. I want bacon. I also have a ton of energy from exercising. I put a ton of energy into it and feel great :).

Hope you guys have a great weekend!

bacon. turkey bacon.

I can do this. I am a (bacon monger) star!

day 93 (day 2 / week 14)

Today I did Turbo Jam's, Cardio Party Mix 1 (I think that's what it's called). I haven't done it in a while and it was so much fun! I used my sculpting gloves for 20 minutes and then took them off, cause I wasn't having much fun lol.

My laptop is going to die so I have to get off. Hopefully I will be able to get on tomorrow to update, but if not, this is how I will be doing it until we get an internet connection at home. We are still looking for jobs so it won't be any time soon unfortunately :-/.

Hope everyone is well! I dont have the memory to check my email/respond to comments so I hope you all are well! You are stars!

We can do this. We are stars!

day 92 (day 1 / week 14)

Thursday 4/2/09

It's really nice to have my own exercise room. It's pretty empty, except for a book shelf, a TV on a stand and my love handler.

Today I did the Turbo Jam 20 minute workout. I was so happy to do it! I missed Turbo Jam. :) So much fun!

I hope everyone is well and is exercising!

I can do this. I am a star.

day 86 (day 2 / week 13)

Well, today is day 1/3 of moving day. My hubby is out to pick up the truck right now. My In-Law's flight has been delayed almost 2 hours, so they aren't here yet.

I did the 20 minute workout (Turbo Jam) and it felt great. I got all beautified this morning, and then went and got my hair cut, so I didn't want to get all gross and exercise, but I did anyway. I'm not gross though. I cut a lot of hair off and it's been thinned out a lot (I think she called it "textured"), so it's not so heavy/hot anymore. It's so cute! I didn't have to put it up in a pony tail to exercise....although when I do, it looks more like a dog tail now with the cut/texture lol. I didn't get it cut to put it in a pony tail anyway, so it's all good. All that matters is that I exercised :)

Depending on how early we start loading the truck tomorrow, I might be posting from a hotel room in Tonopah, NV and also on Sunday, so hopefully they have wireless and/or a computer with internet access that I can post from. I will try to wake up early enough that I can get exercise in though, before we get super busy and everyone starts arriving.

I hope you guys have a great Friday! Make today count! It's worth it!

I can do this. I am a star.

day 83 (day 6 / week 12)

Today I did the 20 minute workout (Turbo Jam). For the past 3-4 days I have been working pretty hard, so I wanted a break. We only have a few more boxes to pack (well maybe 4 or 5) and everything is packed except for our furniture, bedding and stuff we are packing in our suitcases. Sweet!

I can't believe it's already Tuesday. I have been pretty blessed to be able to get on and be accountable for my food choices and exercise. This must be in God's plan for me!

Hope everyone has a great day and workout! Make today count! (it's SO worth it!)

I can do this. I am a star.

day 82 (day 5 / week 12)

My hubby doesn't get off of work until after 4pm, so I wasn't able to post this earlier. I wasn't able to get online to post it either (the connection seems to only like my hubby lol).

Today (around 1:30pm) I did Punch, Kick & Jam (with the sculpting gloves). I'm definitely not as sore as I was yesterday, or even the day before.

95% of the apartment is packed. Yaay!

Hope you guys have a good day and a great workout! Make today count! You'll be happy you did :).

I can do this. I am a star.

Day 79 (day 2 / week 12)

O.M.G. that was hard (Turbo Jam's Punch, Kick & Jam)! I was able to keep up better today without the distraction (God bless his little heart). I am extremely sweaty and so happy to do that workout! I know that I am going to have great results with it, and I love how energetic it is and Chalene is. She totally helps you through it (mentally).

Punch, Kick & Jam is a lot more challenging than the other Turbo Jam workouts I have done so far, and I'm glad. I'm not saying the other ones are easy-peasy, but I don't sweat like this with them.

Anyway, a few days ago I mentioned something that I discussed with my MIL, that I wasn't ready to mention here. Well I guess there isn't going to be a better time, and maybe a lot of you can relate. Maybe coming out will encourage some and make you feel like you aren't alone in this battle.

Hi. My name is Melissa Henning and I am addicted to refined sugar (I said yes to most of these things).

This isn't to say that I eat brownies all day. Or candy. Or ice cream (it's not allowed in the house or I would! lol). Or even table spoons of sugar lol. It's not to say that I will eat an entire box or batch of cookies. I just always have it in my life. Always.

I know it's not a big deal, but I never realized how much I really enjoy my sweets, and baking a lot. I realized this looking at my diet as a whole and trying to cut it out of my diet. Looking for nutrient dense foods, and foods that are lower in calories or low in fat and higher in protein (just depends). Sugar really packs in a lot of unnecessary calories in my diet, and since I cut it out of my diet (it's only been a few days) I have lost 3 lbs. It could be water weight (probably), but I haven't seen a jump like that, on my scale (my current scale) ever! (I need to throw that thing away btw).

For the past few months, since it was mentioned to me in a comment, I have been using sparkpeople.com, but not obsessively inputting my food (just my exercise), until lately. I was packing in almost 600-800 calories--sugar calories here and there and not even realizing it, or I would put aside healthier foods because I knew I wanted to have a brownie or something later! I NEVER enter it into sparkpeople, and when I look back on my days, the days I have only eaten 330 or 500 calories, it's because the rest was something I was ashamed to admit, unconsciously (lol). I feel like I am lying now that I am aware of it, and not inputting it. Now when I want something sweet, I take a tsp of honey. It's sweet enough to knock out my sweet tooth, and leaves me satisfied. If I'm not, then I take 2. A serving size of honey is 1 TBS and is 60 calories. There are 3 tsp in 1 TB. My MIL went through this years ago when she was on the .brain.fart. Prism Diet, and honey helped her. She was a lot worse when it comes to sweets though, she was a hardcore addict, so much so that she still can't touch sweets, because she says she cant just eat a bite, but will eat it all.

I'm not saying that the reason why I'm not losing weight, is because I eat sugar, but maybe part of it is. I know that muscle is heavier than fat and that I am using weights daily (my sculpting gloves) and doing squats and lunges, so I am getting slimmer, but staying the same weight. I know that is fine, but it really bothers me that I am *so close* to 200 lbs, and I can't quite get there. Now that exercise has become apart of who I am, on a daily basis, I need to start thinking about what I put into my body more. I need to appreciate the body that God gave me more, and feed it correctly (again, not that I eat junk all day--I don't). I know some of you will be concerned, some of you wont care either way, and some of you may be right there with me. This isn't to say that I am going to go wacko about it and not eat foods with it in there--I am just not going to cook/bake with it anymore, or at least for a while, until I know I don't need it (I have never wanted to need anything) and I am not going to buy things to specifically satisfy my sweet tooth (even if they are those 100kcal packs).

Sugar isn't the only thing I have changed either. I am forcing myself to drink no less than 8 glasses of water a day (no more soda--but I have been doing that for almost a month now) and I eat 2 cups of salad (no dressing--my preference because I'm not a big fan) with every meal. Yes, even including breakfast.

I feel much better making these changes, just in the last few days...even being sick (my cold is almost gone btw...). I am proud that I am finally jumping on this bandwagon, and now that I have honey, I don't feel like I am depriving myself (when i tried to cut it out cold turkey, w/out honey, I honestly couldn't and didn't want to do it).

Sorry for the long blog entry! I hope you all have a great Friday. This weekend I am going to experiment with my hubby's phone (since his web access isn't limited), and post a blog entry that way, because I will be without the internet for, quite possibly, a while (until we have jobs which we still don't have!).

Make today count! It feels great, I promise!

I can do this. I am a star.

Day 78 (day 1 / week 12)

I feel much better today. I still have a cold but the symptoms are easy to ignore now. My energy is back so I was excited to do a longer Turbo Jam video today.

I totally forgot that my Turbo Jam videos came with another DVD that I never opened, so I decided to do that one today. It's called Punch, Kick & Jam. Man, it's really steppy and it was pretty hard for me to follow. Logan woke up like 15 minutes into it (he slept for less than an hour!) and he wouldn't leave me alone. He accidentally (on purpose) bumped into my bottom and then it became a fun game lol. He kept running into my butt and falling (silly kid--he was laughing really, really hard lol). Then he decided to lean against me, and I just gave up. It will be a lot of fun once I can keep up and understand what she's doing. It's like 47 or 48 minutes long, but I was only able to do 24 minutes. I hope I can do it tomorrow with no interruptions.

I think I will go take him for a walk. It's nice outside :).

Hope you all have a great day and an awesome workout!

I can do this. I am a star.

Day 77 (day 7 / week 11)

I can't believe it's already Wednesday. I am still not feeling that great. The medicine doesn't seem to be working today, because I just feel crappy all around and I can breathe way too well in one nostril and it hurts. The other side is just plugged as well as that ear (it annoys me that I can't pop it) lol. I am just happy that I am sick now, and not next week, because we are finally getting out of here. I can't believe we are moving next Friday!?! I just hope that I'm not still sick next week and that Jason and Logan don't get sick as well.

I mustered up enough strength to do the 20 minute workout today. I want to go take a nap now.

I do want to let you guys know that my pants keep falling when I'm working out now! I thought I had my big pair on (XL), but I was super surprised to find out that they are my small pair (size L--they used to be super tight around my waist and legs). I guess my sweat pants, need to go bye bye now! How exciting is that??

Off to take a nap.

I can do this. I am a star.

Day 76 (day 6 / week 11)

I'm still sick but I figured out an okay combo of meds to make myself functional. Once they wear off, I feel horrible again. About 2 hours after I took some medicine this morning, I thought, "yaay! Maybe I'm not as sick as I thought" cause I felt fine. Then like 2 hours after that I was on the couch feeling horrible with leaky eyes and nose, a scratchy throat and about ready to fall asleep.

My MIL called me to say hi, and I confessed something to her that I had realized in the past few days of going over my food journal and being sick (I'm not ready to out it here yet...but I will eventually). For some reason being sick made me realize it. Her convo woke me up enough to get me off my butt to take some more meds. Now I am fine but I can feel that I'm starting to get tired again. I did 3 loads of laundry and did the 20 minute workout (Turbo Jam) and tried to make it count. I still feel achy but the advil I took earlier is helping that. After Logan is finished eating, I want to go for a walk to the store to pick up some honey (has to do with what I confessed).

So that's it. I feel ok. Still sick, but ok since I figured out a good med combo. Thank you for all of your get well notes, and your concerns. I am ok. It's hard with Logan, but taking this stuff to mask my symptoms and headache seems to be helping. Hopefully it doesn't kill my liver (j/k I know it can't do that much damage in just a few days time that I am taking it lol).

Hope everyone has a happy green day! (can't pinch me! I have green eyes!) Make today count! I did :).

I can do this. I am a star.

Day 73 (day 3 / week 11)

Today I did 2 Turbo Jam workouts. I did Turbo Sculpt (39 minutes) and the 20 minute workout (20 minutes)--in that order.

Turbo Sculpt was a lot more difficult than the regular Turbo Jam videos. I think that I have gotten used to not using any hand weights (just the sculpting gloves) so using my 5# weights was heavy! I used my sculpting gloves instead and my legs hurt (good pain, not bad :)).

After doing Turbo Sculpt I was exhausted and didn't want to do the 20 Minute Workout, but I had already programed it into WOWY, so I figured, "what the heck, it's only 20 minutes." I LOVE turbo jam! I got a 3rd and 4th wind during that workout and am very glad that I followed through and finished it. I just hate that I did 59 minutes and not 60 lol (anal retentive much?). I'm just gonna call it 60. Multiple times throughout the day I will cradle Logan, and jog in place and make him bounce and flop around--he loves that and laughs super hard. Because I love to hear his laugh I do it often. I've done it twice today already. (His laugh makes my heart pitter patter lol).

I am trying to focus on my fiber intake because I don't think I am eating enough throughout the day (I may be but have never thought about it before). I will know for sure by the end of next week because I am tracking it now. I read on sparkpeople somewhere that a reason for lack of weight loss could be not eating enough fiber. I am 1/2 way there for my daily consumption today. I just want to see if I feel any differently by the end of the week, also.

I also feel like I might be getting sick (the stress of the move maybe?). I am going to start loading up on my vitamin C, echinacea and vitamins (I always forget to take my multi until I get sick pssht). Anyway off to go eat something.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and a great workout! Make today count!

I can do this. I am a star.

Day 72 (day 2 / week 11)

Today is gonna be a day of wills. It's my hubby's birthday, and he likes to eat all the yummy evil foods that if I just look at, it slaps itself to my butt. I am confident that I will be fine, I just hate to have tempting food in the house. I am at the point now, where I see everything as calories (this may be a bad thing, because I can become obsessive with stuff I can control), and if something is itty bitty, and has enough calories to be a small meal or snack, I can easily pass it up. Anyway, I have faith that I will stay strong and nothing will stray me. Even if it does, it's not the end of the world, and not like I won't work it off in the next few days anyway :) (*whew* I feel better now lol).

Today I only did the Turbo Jam 20 minute workout. It is so much fun! Lately I have not been in the mood to exercise, but as soon as I turn Turbo Jam on, I am super happy that I did. SO much fun!

I was kind of having an awkward exercise day, in that I didn't put my hair up, so it threw my balance off (I blame it on the hair lol). First I knocked my glasses off of my face doing speed bags and then one side of my bra unsnapped during the "turbo" portion and that...well that was just a little bit uncomfortable and coincidentally pretty funny. I thought it was high-larious (I am the kind of girl that still laughs when my son farts. You'd think after 2 years, it would stop being funny. Nope! I still lmao everytime). What a difference a pony tail makes! lol.

I hope you all have a great Friday and a great workout! It's almost summer...make today count! :)

I can do this. I am a star.

Day 69 (day 6 / week 10)

I <3 Turbo Jam! I really do!

Today I did Cardio Party again, and it is so much fun! :). She does this thing with a speedbag and then an upper cut--and it's just so much fun! The sculpting gloves are totally going to tone down my wings, I mean arms. I'm so excited!

I <3 Turbo Jam! I really, really do!

Hope everyone has a fun workout! Nothing better than having fun and burning calories at the same time :).

I can do this. I am a star!

Day 68 (day 5 / week 10)

I am having problems counting lol. I went from day 3/week 10 to day 2/week 10 and today is day 5 lol (make sense? lol).

Today I did Turbo Jam's Cardio Party for the first time. Holy snapoli, that was so much fun! It's 43 minutes long (and some odd seconds) and it's just loaded with energy and fun! I thought the previous 2 that I had done (learn & burn and the 20 minute workout) were fun, but this was F-U-N!

*sings*
F is for friends who do stuff together,
U is for you and me
N is for anywhere and anytime at all, down here in the deep blue sea!


now that that's out of my system... lol

I thought that when I started Turbo Jam that I was going to get lost with the moves and might not be able to be able to keep up, because she is ALWAYS moving. But I didn't. I am so proud of myself that I can keep up! I wore my sculpting gloves, and when there was 12 minutes left, I took them off. I noticed a pretty big drop in my heart rate, so I put them back on, so that I can get the full cardiovascular benefit (it went from like 165 to 130 doing the same moves!). We'll see how I feel tomorrow. I am thinking about making my (non)rest days, days that I don't wear the gloves, since it seems to be a lot easier, and since Turbo Jam is so much fun anyway (and she has short 20 minute workouts).

Hope everyone has a great workout/day! Turbo Jam rocks!

I can do this. I am a star.

Day 67 (day 4 / week 10)

Today I did Turbo Jam's 20 minute workout. I wanted it to be a rest day, but figured that I am only doing 20 minutes of exercise anyway, so I should just suck it up and do it. I did it, just without the sculpting gloves.

I hope everyone has a blessed Sunday.

I can do this. I am a star.

Day 66 (day 3 / week 10)

Today I did Turbo Jam's 20 Minute Workout (20 mins) and Ab Jam (20 mins(?)--I forgot to pay attention).

I heart Turbo Jam!!
It's so much fun!

Half way through the 20 minute workout I took my sculpting gloves off, because my sholder started to cramp. I can't believe what a difference those gloves make! It really does boost the intensity!

I will probably do something later this afternoon, when Logan is down for a nap, if I don't get carried away with packing. It's just so much fun and helps me to burn off my 2nd and 3rd winds that I get throughout the day. It totally doesn't feel like exercise to me, but my arms, back and chest have been sore (good sore), so, yep! It's exercise! :-D.

982 people were in WOWY today @ 8:30/11:30EST. We BLEW the old record out of the water :). Thanks for joining me!

It was really neat to see Chalene from Turbo Jam and Tony from P90X in the WOWY gym, working out with everyone else. WOWY stands for Work Out With You, just in case any of you were wondering.

Thanks for a great and exciting workout! There were so many people in WOWY! I wasn't able to go through all of the pages to see who was there. Did any of you go?

Have a wonderful Saturday!

I can do this. I am a star.

Day 65 (day 2 / week 10)

I exercised early this morning because my blog wasn't working for me and I wanted to post something, to see if that fixed it lol. I did Turbo Jam's 20 minute workout again, and will probably do that again during Logan's nap, or something else. I'll update it.

I did feel my arms, shoulders and back when I woke up this morning (my proof that the sculpting gloves work) but mostly I feel it in my chest. When I flex my pecs, I have muscles! Pretty sweet. A lot of people thing that's manly, but I think it looks great in tank tops and gives the illusion of higher cleavage. It will look great in a bathing suite once I shed all this fat.

Turbo Jam is SO MUCH FUN! I love jumping around and dancing and doing all of this kickboxing stuff. It's so much fun! I also like that sparkpeople has an option for Turbo Jam in the cardio section, included in kickboxing :).

Anyway, hope everyone has a great morning. Don't forget about working out on WOWY on TOMORROW Saturday March 7th at 11AM ET/8AM PT! Tomorrow! We are trying to break a WOWY record! It's free, you just need to create an account so you can participate. If you have questions, PLEASE, please, please let me know! :) We want to get more than 550 people working at the same time in WOWY :).

Have a great workout and a great Friday! (woo hoo! It's Friday!) My hubby and I might go rent a movie or go out to eat or something, since it was our 3rd anniversary on Tuesday (03+03=06 lol).

I can do this. I am a star!

UPDATE:

6:30pm: Turbo Jam 20 minute workout (2nd time today!). Great way to burn off that second wind!

Day 64 (day 1 / week 10)

Today I feel much better than I did yesterday. I'm still a little achy (especially my right knee where I now have a big scab), but it's very easy to ignore.

Today I did Turbo Jam's "20 Minute Workout." It was so much fun! I wore the sculpting gloves again, and I'm sure I'll feel it tomorrow. I have been wearing them for the past few days, and I have to say, they work. They feel like nothing when you wear them, which is great, because I can focus on learning the moves, and doing the jabs and upper cuts, but I can totally tell that my arm muscles, shoulders and upper back are being worked the next day. It's great. This workout is so much fun! I feel like I have a lot of energy to begin with, so it's nice to be able to just use it and explode and have fun and let off energy by improvise dancing and such (I am a VERY hyper person)!

I have been following the workout schedule that comes in the, "Turbo results guidebook" but after tomorrow, they schedule 3 big 'ol fat, whopping rest days! We all know I wont be doing that, so I need to figure out what to do there instead. Maybe I will just not look at like a calendar and just do whatever is next up (ignoring the rest days all together). Then once I get to the end of the "calendar" they provide, I will worry about what do do next. Sounds like a plan to me :)

I hope everyone is having a great Thursday! Can you believe it's Thursday???!?! Gees, where does the time go? I am so glad that I am exercising, because I would be so disappointed to let those days fly by w/out taking advantage of them. I hope you guys are too!

Don't forget about working out on WOWY on Saturday March 7th at 11AM ET/8AM PT! THIS Saturday! We are trying to break a WOWY record! It's free, you just need to create an account so you can participate. If you have questions, PLEASE let me know! :)

I can do this. I am a star. :)