Halloween 2013

I was up .4 lbs which isn't bad for the cold and TOM combination.  This was another week of Body Gospel for me; I did a different workout each day.

Because of the storms Thursday we went trick-or-treating Friday instead.  Austin didn't get as much candy as years past but he wasn't disappointed in the least!  Benny stayed in the car and drove slowly next to us, which freaked out this group of girls we came across LOL.

One kid asked what I was but I had no answer for him.  What would you call my costume?  The corset was still tight around my stomach but had loosened up much at my chest.  Benny tried to pull it tighter but it made no difference.  I had pulled out my old boots and the pleather (as I don't know what the material is) was crumbling off!  Boy, I could've used some knee-high boots for the costume!  Now I want to get a pair and maybe start wearing skirts/dresses again LOL.  Ultimately I'd love to have a pair of thigh high boots but don't know when my thighs will be small enough for that to work.

My hair didn't want to cooperate as usual so I couldn't really get the look that I wanted.  It was weird, I had to straighten my hair before curling it in order to even attempt to get anything to stay put.

As expected not many calories were burned while I walked Austin around but it was interesting to see the numbers anyway.

Maybe it was from walking so slow but my leg and back were stiff and sore by the time we got home.  I woke up Saturday morning with my neck and shoulders being extra stiff too.  Instead of a normal workout I found a couple of stretching videos on YouTube (~30 minutes total) that pretty much took care of my leg and back.  My neck and shoulders eventually meandered back to their normal stiffness.

What did you do for Halloween?

ONEDERLAND with a Cold

It's finally official!

I dropped another 3.2 lbs this week.  Monday was a scheduled rest day as the last "day" of the Body Gospel program.  I took another rest day Tuesday.  Then Wednesday I just did Core Revelations but still felt weak.  Stupid colds.  The rest of the week I did a Leslie Sansone walking DVD.

I'd ordered the Slim in 6 program to use with the challenge starting November 4.  I'm going to try the bands this time around. Just not sure what kind of schedule I'm doing yet but I have one more week to figure that out!

Saturday I made a quick trip to Goodwill and picked up a couple of size 16 jeans that fit nicely.  It was annoying having to wash the darks every 3 days since I only had three pairs of pants.

I made today a rest day to get into the groove of starting Slim in 6 on a Monday.  Since I'm not doing anything new, just mixing up my existing programs, there shouldn't be any issues.  I was so bored today.  I went out into the garden this afternoon and pulled up the dead plants and dowel rods.  I used the weed whacker to chop up what I couldn't pull up.  This one deep root I used the pickaxe on to remove (well, I hope I got it all LOL).

Body Gospel Week 4 at GOAL #2

Well, my official weigh in didn't put me in ONEDERLAND....just .1 lbs shy.  There was no workout scheduled for Tuesday morning but I think if there had been it might've made it LOL.  I still reached a milestone anyway!

Images Courtesy of Stuart Miles | Freedigitalphotos.net

Yes, that's 20% / 50 lbs of me gone since March.  This is the lightest I've been in over 7 years!  I got my 50 lb charm at the Weight Watchers meeting and added it to my collection.

This week during the Body Gospel workouts I had some weird tummy thing going on.  It never lasted much beyond the workouts so I have no idea what it was.  Then Friday afternoon I got a sore throat that I've been fighting with all weekend.  Tonight it turned into a cold as my nose keeps dripping.

This final week's workouts were Strength & Spirit, Power & Praise, Core Revelations & Stretch in the Spirit, and Body Revival. This morning doing Strength & Spirit I could feel the weakness setting in from the cold.  I was shocked to see that I'd burned so many calories even while feeling like crap!

Today was the final workout of the Body Gospel program.  I'm not sure what I'm doing between now and the Slim in 6 for the Holidays Challenge starting November 4.  Maybe I'll lay out all the DVDs and do the old "eeny, meeny, miney, mo" every day to see what workout I'll do each day LOL.

My Halloween costume is pretty much complete.  I just have to figure out how to do my hair, what to wear on my legs, and what shoes to wear.  It was suggested that I do a rockabilly hairstyle but most of those have bangs.  What are your thoughts?

A side by side comparison of last year vs this year...

Body Gospel Week 3 in ONEDERLAND

At my weekly weigh in I dropped another 4.2 lbs, just 1 lb shy of my 50 lb goal!  I can see ONEDERLAND!  In fact, if you follow this blog on Facebook you would've seen that I hit this the very next day when I had blood work done.  What a difference 6 months makes!

Here's to my official weigh in Tuesday night being in ONEDERLAND!

Image courtesy of stockimages / Freedigitalphotos.net

This week I did Gospel Glory, Power & Praise, Core Revelations & Stretch in the Spirit, Strength & Spirit, and Body Revival & Core Revelations.  The Core and Stretch combo exerted the least energy (about the same as I do emptying the dishwasher).  This week was also different because my rest day was scheduled as Friday instead of Saturday.  Next week it's on a different day.

Monitoring my workouts this week:

• Body Gospel & Core Revelations ended up being the longest workout, probably because of the pause switching from one video to the next.  Otherwise Strength & Spirit would be considered the longest.
• Core Revelations & Stretch in the Spirit was the shortest workout.  This resulted in me burning the least calories that day as proven by the average and max heart rates being the lowest.
• I burned the most calories doing Strength & Spirit.
• My average and max heart rate were the highest during Gospel Glory.

Our team is having a Beat the Treats Challenge starting October 28 to scare off some pounds and be trim for turkey time.  If you're interested in this challenge there will be a webinar Wednesday night with all the details.  Register here for the webinar.

Body Gospel Week 2 + My First Challenge Group

I was up a pound this week I think because of TOM. Gotta kick it back up next week!

Early September I won a Polar FT4 Heart Rate Monitor as a part of Britton @ My Big, Beautiful, Life's Blogger-Versary giveaway. It arrived in Thursday's mail so I used it during Friday's workout.  I'm going to try to remember to take a picture of the recordings every day and post them on Facebook.  Would you rather see the heart rate, calories burned, or both?

I did Body Revival, Power & Praise, Core Revelation, and Stretch in the Spirit this week.  Both times I did Power I was hot and red afterwards.  My face stayed red even after a shower.  Could that be from my heart rate reaching the high end of the target range several times?

The foot straps on the Body Gospel bands aren't adjustable.  They stay on my feet but are still quite loose and sort of move around during some of the workouts.  Either my foot is smaller than everyone on the DVDs or someone used too much elastic on my straps.

US/CANADA Only

I'm excited to host my first challenge group next month!  You saw my progress doing Slim in 6 half-assed in the summer heat. Just imagine what I could do in cooler temperatures!  So I'm hosting the Slim in 6 for the Holidays Challenge starting November 4th.  I'd love for some of you to join me on this adventure!  Please RSVP to the event and send me a friend request so that I can add you to the group later this month.  Be sure to purchase Slim in 6 so you can play along!  (I think you'd need to order by 10/28 to make sure it arrives in time with standard shipping.)

Body Gospel Week 1

I weighed in down 4.2 lbs this week.  Now if only I can get this loss more often I'd reach goal in no time!

I received my Slim in 6 shirt this week.  This time it specifically said it was a Women's XL.  However these are made it's definitely a tighter fit than a standard XL.  I think I'll have to wait a little bit before I can wear it in public.

I'd also ordered the new Shakeology sampler pack and received that this week.  It's two chocolate packets, one vanilla, and one greenberry.  I tried the greenberry but wasn't too thrilled with the flavor; it just left my mouth feeling a little dry.  Austin tried the chocolate and said it tasted different from other shakes but wasn't sure if it was a good or bad difference.  When I took a sip I thought it tasted like sugar free cocoa powder.  He didn't drink it all so I had him put it in the freezer.  I tried it the next morning and it was much better frozen.

61 Hoosiers became citizens on Thursday.  There was standing room only for the family and friends to watch it all unfold.  I was kind of squished in the front left corner for the whole ceremony.  The first hour or so was checking everyone in.  There was a 10 minute break before the ceremony, which lasted about 40 minutes.

Click here to see the pictures full size.

I'm liking Body Gospel so far.  It's not the same thing every day.  The schedule has you mixing up which workout you're doing each day.  I did Body Revival, Core Revelation, and Stretch in the Spirit this week.  Core (~20 minutes) and Stretch (~10 minutes) on their own aren't long enough for me so I put them together to keep myself going at least 30 minutes.  With the Shakeology sampler I ordered the bands too since I couldn't figure out how to effectively do a modified version with the weights.

I've received several inquiries from people responding to my request for guest posters.  Some are spot on the subject matter and others are nowhere in this realm.  Those of you that have had guest posters on your blogs, how do you sort through the madness?

Done Walking and What's Next

I weighed in this week down only another .4 lbs.  So now it doesn't appear that I'm going to reach my second goal by the end of the month.  It just seems as though everything's slowed down a little for me.

I did stop by Goodwill and purchased three long sleeve shirts and slacks after Tuesday's weigh in.  My size 18s are getting too big but most of the 16s there were too small.  Benny didn't like one of the shirts (a sweater) because it didn't show off my curves enough.  He said it looked like I was wearing a sack.  As for the slacks Benny said they were too wide at the bottom...something no longer in style.  So those were returned yesterday.  I didn't see anything new at that Goodwill location so we'll have to check another.

Thursday's a big day for us as Benny takes his citizenship oath.  I'm taking Austin out of school to experience the whole thing.  I hope to take a lot of pictures while we're there.  I imagine it'll be chilly in the federal courthouse so I plan to wear one of the new to me outfits.

The exhaustion continued this week and not just during the workout.  Normally this level that I'm feeling is associated with PMS but it's the wrong time for that.  So I'm wondering if I'm getting sick; although when I get sick it doesn't usually take weeks to manifest the full symptoms.

After walking a week I'm ready for something different.  I kind of liked the little break in between programs so I may go buy some of Leslie's DVDs to use whenever I feel I need it.  Yesterday I picked up three programs at the library to see which I can do that should all fit in my small space.  But then the challenge became whether or not could I physically do any of them.

With Les Mills Combat you take the most dynamic moves from some mixed martial arts disciplines (Karate/Kung Fu, Capoeira, Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai/Kickboxing, Tai Kwon Do, & Boxing) and combine them into increasingly intense sequences.  I read this and said to myself "Uh, I don't think so."  Never even put the DVD in to watch it.

Brazil Butt Lift appeared to be more reasonable so Austin and I watched the first workout, Bum Bum (pronounced "Boom Boom").  There's this one move where you're walking/dancing/bouncing back and forth on the balls of your feet as if you're wearing high heels.  I can't even wear 1" heels because of the extreme laxity in both ankles.  Technically I'm supposed to wear ankle braces but then I'm really restricted on what shoes I can wear.  Unless someone knows of a modification for this move I don't know that I'm going to ever be able to do this program.

Body Gospel was the one I ended up going with.  There were several moves similar to others I'd done before.  Wow, never have I felt so uncoordinated before!  My arms didn't want to work together with my legs.  When I tried to do my arms either I couldn't keep up or it slowed my legs down.  This program is only 30 days so we'll see where it goes.

Image courtesy of [nuchylee] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I've decided to open up this blog and have guest posts on various health and wellness related topics.  The details of what I'm looking for is posted on my lens.  About which topics in particular would you like to read?