Spring Shape Up Challenge

Last week I joined Theodora, from Losing Weight in the City, for her Spring Shape Up Challenge. I've been looking for something to motivate me to keep working out and I really hope that this is something that will keep me going. It's nice because we have short- and long-term goals so it gives you more than one thing to work one.

My short term goals from last week:

• Lose one pound Probably a fail but scale is such a wack job I'm not sure but based on how much I ate........I'm thinking FAIL
• Drink more water I think I actually did pretty good on this one. I'm working on getting used to trying to drink 1.5 L bottles of water versus the 0.5 ones........

My long term goals:

• Lose 8-10 lbs total. I've been trying to focus on losing 1 lb a week but I would be ok with more. However it seems that 1/2 a pound has been more realistic which leads me to my next goal.
• Eat healthier and watch my portion sizes. I've been pretty bad at that lately but Army food is not always the greatest (especially here).
• Workout at least 5 days/week. Just trying to be more consistent.

My goals for week 2:

• Lose one pound
• Do some form of cardio at least 4 times in the next week
• Begin the 200 sit up challenge
• Blog more!

The challenge ends March 21st. Two months to get rid of some of this weight for the last time. I'm so tired of being like this. I think that one of my only hopes may be to stop eating and exercise 24/7. I kid I kid............kinda..........Ha! Actually I just need to give up one of my biggest loves, ALCOHOL. It's a killer so I really have to buckle down til Rome so I can wear some of the pants that are coming to me in the mail!

Week 8

rytOk so this week's post is a little late. I possibly may have gotten down to 144.4 pounds this week or it could be that my scale is crazy and just tells me whatever number I want to see. Seriously I think it could be possessed by the devil because it has drastic changes in the numbers everytime I get on. I try and weigh myself in the exact same spot at the same time and it still doesn't matter. Sometimes in a span of 10 seconds it says I've lost like 8 pounds. Really scale don't give me false hope like that. It's not nice to toy with the emotions of a chubby girl!

Last week, I was suffering and still kind of am now, from a UTI. Wow what a fun experience I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed. Not only that but it kind of threw off my workout routine for like a week. Well that's pretty awesome if I do say so myself because not working out for a week is really going to get me looking good for Greece, much less Rome, that is in the nearer distance (three weeks to be exact). I have been an online shopping fiend and buying clothes in sizes in hopes that I will soon wear. My whole problem with weight loss is I honestly haven't been seeing a difference in anything at all and it's so depressing to me that it makes me want to just continue eating as much pizza as I can possibly stuff in my body instead of eating vegetables and going to the gym. Am I the only one that thinks this? It seems like some people's blogs I look at, they have no issues fighting the temptations of everything around them and then go and run 8 miles. I can't do anything of that EVER. I feel like a chubby girl that's just hopeless at this but I really am trying so hard but nothing helps. I think that part of my problem could be the food I eat but don't really realize that I'm eating. Unless I run 20 miles a day I probably couldn't work off the amount of calories I've eaten in chocolate in the last week. This is a new week though and since the gym will finally be open again tomorrow you can best believe I will try my hardest to get my butt in the gym where it belongs.

Some random pics

I figured I would post some random pics on here because I never do so here you go.

During the DANCON march (25.2km!!) Through the mountains which is way worse than it sounds!

Not the greatest pic of my ever but look mom I'm a girl! Who knew under this beautiful uniform I wear everyday?

Me and the boyfriend :) Aren't we cute?

So this is not a lot of pics but my internet is SO slow it took like five minutes to upload these!

Bad Week

So I'm not really sure why but I've been starving all week long and stuffing my face with pretty much anything within my reach. Currently it's dried banana chips. So good but not the most healthy thing I could eat either. I look at a lot of fitness and health blogs and everyone is always posting pictures of their food. It's always so good and healthy looking. I have issues with that because I live in Kosovo and eat military food everyday. Especially lately it has sucked a lot. There is really not a lot of variety in food. The salad selection is exactly the same everyday and it's nauseating. There is VERY limited healthy food that you can buy in any store. Forget low-fat, low-cal because it just doesn't exist here. You can't even really order food online anywhere normal. I have to resort to having people send me stuff but that's not really cheap or convienent so what is a girl to do? All I really want to do is eat a big Snickers bar right now. Damn my life.

P.S. I quit French class......it wasn't a beginner's class it was like intermediate and it made me feel extremely stupid. I know I'm not but the teacher was not good at all and very difficult to learn from. I hate quitting things because it makes me feel like a failure but hey I am going to be the most in shape female at this base one day. Haha that makes me laugh a little!

Week 7

Ok so edit from last week I think the scale was really saying 145.6 almost all week so that sucks. Today I weighed in at 145.2 so that's almost 1/2 a pound. Which isn't great but isn't a gain so that's good! I had three days last week with 2 workouts in each day so I was pretty proud of myself. I went on the bike for a half hour today because I was short on time. I have to lay off strenuous exercise for the next few days because I have an infection and was told by the doctor to not do too much exercising while on these antibiotics. That's great since I ate like a whole bag of M&M's tonight.......Oh crap

Sundays

I love Sundays because I don't have to work but then that means I pretty much stay in bed all day long. This also creates a lack of motivation for me to do anything other than nothing. So I did not go to the gym I chose to eat two small pizzas instead. I may have also drank a little too much jungle juice at a party last night. I did work out twice yesterday though so I think that counts for something. I have actually worked out three times this week, twice a day and pretty hard too so I don't feel AS bad about it. Tomorrow is another day though. I don't think my P90X routine is liking it as much though. This is already my second day of not doing it but I will just pick up where I left off tomorrow.

Weigh in is tomorrow I hope it says I weigh a pound less tomorrow but I probably won't be that lucky. I'm crossing my fingers!

2x Workouts

So I've started working out twice a day. Obviously this isn't going to happen everyday but I'm hoping that it jump starts my metabolism. I started doing P90X yesterday and I did it today too. I can definitely feel it in all parts of my body but I like when I hurt because it makes me know that I've actually done a hard workout.

In other news I ran again tonight! Pretty much the first time in 2 months and it was awesome. I only ran 1.5 miles but I felt strong and it was very relaxing. My knee didn't give me any problems which I've been really nervous about. I've been having nightmares about the fact that I might still be having problems and not be able to run. I have big dreams of POSSIBLY running a half marathon this fall or next January possibly. It depends on what my military plans have in store for me I think. I'm not going to be pushing myself very hard for a little bit just to be safe. I can tell that my legs seem to be getting stronger probably from how much I've been using them on the bike. Maybe I'll even get some definition on them soon. One can only hope right?

Also I think my weigh in on Monday may have been a little off I think it was closer to 145.6 than 145.0 but hey that's still an entire pound from last week so woo hoo!

New Weigh In

Ok so I haven't re-weighed myself because I frankly haven't had any time. Today has been really long moving lots of furniture in my office and then my coworkers decided to have a little party with wine and champagne. I had one small glass of each so not too bad. Didn't quite make it to the gym because of all this but I'm thinking I will go tomorrow morning then do my weigh in again tomorrow morning and see what it says. Also no I haven't quite started on my inspiration board because of my lack of time lately but I will start it soon I promise! I start French lessons tomorrow night so it probably won't be tomorrow. Hopefully I learn something from these classes but my pronunciation is terrible. I'll let you know all about it.

Week 6

So I weighed in this week at 145? I think??? My scale is crazy and likes to change numbers depending on where it is sitting. I just consistantly weigh myself at the same spot but I wasn't really too sure about the 145 this morning. Will redo later tonight. Stay tuned!

Inspiration Board

So I've been seeing on some different fitness blogs that some of them have made inspiration boards.




Kinda like this one Gina from The Fitnessista made.


I've kind of been thinking about doing something like that to look and and focus on. I think I feel an art project coming on.......

In other notes my working out has been kind of sporatic due to a fantastic cold thing I managed to pick up this week. It's definitely made me drained. I did have a really great workout at the gym on the bike last night though. It always makes me happy when I leave the gym drenched in sweat. Today I took the day off because I worked kinda late then had a girl's night in with a movie and pizza. A vegetable pizza with some cheetos....oops and some vanilla ice cream....double oops. However most of the week I have been pretty good with eating lots of vegetables. I find that I crave vegetables more and more now. Except salads because I can't stand the salad options that we have here. They are so gross! Well here's to a good workout tomorrow.

"How ironic that all that comfort food ended up making me feel uncomfortable."


I think this quote kinda sums up my life.

Week 5

Hello everyone. So this is already 5 weeks of having this blog. I'm surprised I haven't gotten bored of it and completely given up. That's what I usually do, I'm not very good at committing to things, hence the reason weight loss for me sucks. Anyways I'm very happy to say that I lost 0.8 lbs since last week coming to 146.4 lbs. Yes I know it's not an incredibly high number but it's not a gain so that's always a good thing. Slowly but surely I think I will get this weight loss thing down. Don't let anyone fool you, it is a constant struggle and never easy. I just counted off the time until I will be spending my time in Greece and it is 17 weeks until I leave. If I can even lose 1 pound every week that would basically bring me to my goal. I think I am going to keep this in mind mind. 1 pound every week should be doable. It's not like I'm trying to lose half my body weight or anything. Just some.

On a different note, today was day 1 of starting P90X Lean. It's supposed to help you build more lean muscle and not as many heavy, bulky bodybuilding ones. I hope that it jump starts my metobolism because I seem just like I'm forever going to be stuck between 5 pounds up or down of 145. The exercises were hard. The first one was called "Core Synergystics." I didn't really feel like I worked my core as much as other things. I find that I have a hard time engaging my abs and core when I'm doing things like that. My shoulders felt like they got more of a workout and my back is kind of sore. Obviously I wasn't doing everything completely correct I guess but what do they expect on your first day. I also got a really bad charlie horse or something in my shoulder doing something and I almost quit because I was in so much pain. It did end up going away but I think I'm going to skip my extra workout I was planning on doing tonight and give my shoulder a rest. It's such a pain sometimes (haha funny pun!).

I'm also trying some other new things like planning my workouts one week at a time in advance and writing them in my planner. I'm also trying to work on writing down everything I eat in a day. I keep trying to do this and I usually fail by about supper time. I've heard this is a really good way to keep yourself aware of what you're eating throughout the day. I know I'm a mindless eater especially being in my room filled with junk. It just tastes so good but is it really going to make me look good is the question. Usually it's no but I still struggle with it.

I will try and put some more pictures up on here as well. Lately I've been doing this from work so I can't put any pictures up. I'm also very lazy and hate downloading pictures onto my computer. Why you ask? I have no idea it's not like it's hard but check out the last time my Facebook page has gotten any new pictures put on it. I know I need motivation in almost every aspect of my life right now. Hopefully I'll find some!

Obsessed or Just Trying to Be Motivated?

So lately all I think about is working out and trying to lose weight. My weight doesn't seem to be moving down much lately......Well for the last month I've maybe lost 2 lbs. That's like almost not even worth it. I'm trying to not that get me down because I really really REALLY want to be at my goal weight (or very close) by the time I get to Greece at the beginning of May. I need to hit the gym tonight and spend some good quality time there, I just need to get motivated but I will get there eventually. The chart on my wall that I track my workouts is seeing a lot more zeros than numbers so I really need to work on that. Here's to having a better week especially since the holidays are officially over!