sblandrus’s BodyBlog

So my mom is a school teacher, and both of us are home because there have been enormous amounts of snow accumulating, and school has been canceled for the both of us.  Well, I ate my 2nd meal around 930, and she’s been baking these delicious smelling sugar cookies for valentines day, and I’m about to DIE!!! My body is telling me that I’m hungry because it smells those wonderful cookies, and I want to eat one SOOOO bad. However, I am not going to. I don’t really need to….plus, she doesn’t have any extra. lol…. it also doesn’t help that I am writing essays for history and am severely bored…anyhow…just gotta keep on keepin’ on.
My workout will be after work tonight, I think my boyfriend is gonna meet me at the gym….*sigh*….I miss him.

So, yeah, I cheated.  Last night.  I’ve been a rock star all week, but dad’s birthday was last night…here’s the damage I did (mind you, I ate just according to plan for my 1st 5 meals, and hit the gym hard in the morning):

Dinner was spaghetti (probably with super lean beef, my mom helps out that way). I had one serving, probably 3/4 to 1 cup regular spaghetti noodles, with about 1/2 cup or so of sauce (I was SOOOOOOOO tempted to have a BIG OL PLATE of seconds), and two small cesar salads, few croûtons, and fat free cesar dressing (all mixed in with the salad, not dumped on top of  each portion, so probably about 1tbsp-1.5 tbsp per serving)….then came desert.  I had two pieces of white walmart cake, and 1/2 cup (these are all eyeball estimates) of fat free (or reduced fat) chocolate chip mint ice cream, again, thanks mom.  THEN we went to the movies, saw Rambo, AWESOME FLICK btw, and had probably 2 cups of that god-awful popcorn, a nerds rope (haha, I love those, I’m such a kid), a few sips of my boyfriend’s WAY TOO SWEET icee, and 1/2 a thing of nachos with that cheesey sauce.  Fortunately, they jip you and give you hardly any sauce and chips for what you pay for, so I didn’t really eat that much of those nachos between me and the bf.
So today, it’s back to normal.  No work out this morning, I stayed up too late, but I might squeeze a good cardio and abs in tonight…I probably should.

So what do you think? Unforgiveable??? I think sometimes it’s a little necessary to my sanity, maybe I should’ve left out the cals at the movie…oh well, today is a new day, I’m gonna go have some oatmeal and eggwhites

Went to bed last night at 915, woke up this morning at 440…It felt really good.  I need to get more consistent at this though, that will give me more energy at the gym, and then it won’t take me as long to wake up (like 1/2 way through my workout).

I really wish I saw more fit people at the gym.  Working out is not just to get IN shape, hopefully people there would be maintaining too.

And can I just complain about a certain group of people? Well, I’m going to.  I get so sick and tired of all the "lightweight" females that go to the gym, and just tip-toe on the treadmill, with their perfectly coiffed hair, and make-up done just  right, not doing anything but taking up the damn machines.  GET OUT OF THE GYM!!!! These people are wasting their precious time.  They could go to the mall, and eat some frozen yogurt and burn as many calories. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE???!?! Do people not know how to work hard!!!???!!! When I get out of the gym I’m a tomato face!!! I look like sh**!!! But I’ve worked my A** off so it doesn’t matter!!!! I use the gym for what it is intended for, and I wish that the attention seekers would just get out of the way. They should make a special room: "People who want to look cute at the gym" and another room that says "People who are serious about fitness, and willing to bust their a**es for an hour or so"
I wish you girls would just stay home.

So last night, I was on my way to getting to bed right on time, when after my bath, my mother said "Sarah, you received a package"… I knew exactly which one it was…it was my Victoria’s Secret package with my swimsuit and dresses and all the stuff I ordered for my cruise…I’ve been hoping it would come soon!! So I wanted to show my mom all the stuff, well, I got to trying things on, my mom had a present from VS that she had to give me for my cruise, and eventually it was this long drawn out ordeal. Then I talked to my boyfriend on the phone, he wanted me to change his myspace layout…and we ended up texting ’till 11 pm, not only that, but since I was up so late I got the munchies…basically my body just telling me it was ready for its next meal, and I also forgot to pack my meals yesterday, so my body was all thrown off cause I had to buy a couple of tuna sandwiches from the cafeteria (that was the best they had) and eat those (probably 450 cals ea)…and so now, I missed my workout this morning, my room is a mess, no homework is going to get done tonight b/c I will have to hit the gym, and all the treadmills will probably be taken @ the gym tonight by the time I get there…ugh…that was a waste of a day…not a complete waste, but it’s disappointing when I’ve been working really hard to be on top of things.

Oh well, it’s in the past, the only thing I can do now is get my act together today….

I’ll let u know how it goes.

So I’ve noticed some changes in my body…gradual, but evident all the same.  I can tell that my body fat is decreasing, mostly in my arms, shoulders and abdominals. It’s actually really exciting.  Although my leg progress is still taking awhile, I have to remind myself that if I am seeing improvements in my upper body, that does not mean that only my upper body is decreasing body fat, rather my whole body is getting lower in bf, it’s just that my thighs and glutes are where I store the most, and therefore will lose last. As long as I am making some sort of visible progress, then I am making strides towards my goals.  I guess I am just realizing how much patience it is going to take, but I know it will come, and that is the exciting part…taking my body where it’s never been before.

While not meant to be a negative post, I didn’t have the best workout yesterday. I’ve taken my time, analyzed the situation, and discovered the key factors in this being one of my bottom 5 workouts.

#1. Got to bed late: I went to bed at 11pm, and woke up at 7. Now, even though this is still 8 hours, which is what I get even when I go to bed on time, my body is used to starting this process at 9 pm, and ending it at 5 am, and I have noticed when I throw my sleep schedule off, my body does not have the energy that it usually does. 8 hours makes no difference, it’s going to bed and getting up at the same times, that way your body knows when to release Melatonin and all that good stuff to get a better sleep, and better recovery.
#2. Had breakfast at 8 am, didn’t eat again until after workout, which was at about 230. Yeah, NOT good.
#3. Worked out in the afternoon, my body has already used a good portion of the energy from sleep and my first meal, if not all of it, so the energy bank was closed, and I was trying to make a large withdrawal.

So, I attempted to do HIIT, but made it only to 25 minutes (which is the moderately paced 15, followed by intervals, and not much past that), my mental focus wasn’t there, and my body was crapping out on me.

So, today will be the second attempt, probably no HIIT today, but upperbody lifting, and some stair climbers.

This is going to be an AWESOME week…I’m going to hit it hard, to bed on time, up on time. I actually did fairly well this last week, I can’t discredit that.

I’ve been trying not to look at my results, but just keep telling myself "Just get in there, do the work with everything you are, results will follow."

Ok, so I’ve done HIIT 2 days this week, and so far I’m LOVIN’ it!  The first day I did 10 min moderate pace to start, 60 seconds- crazy fast, 60 seconds-walking (repeat 5x) then 10 minutes at the end at the moderate pace (for times sake)…so that was pretty intense, I stopped once to change my music…. WELL, yesterday I did the full 15 min before and after the intervals, all the same speeds as my first HIIT session, NON STOP. I just about shot myself in the face. After I was done, everyone was staring at my TOMATO FACE!!! HAha…I think I was more hard core than that gym could handle, but I felt GREAT!!! It was a serious mental struggle, but I made it, all the way through, and ignored everytime I thought "Oh, just slow your speed down" or "Your body is sore, you can cut it a little short" or "just walk for the last 10-5-3-2-1 minutes". I said no everytime, and I am glad I did. It is such a sense of conquering that I feel. My next HIIT session is on saturday….ask me how it goes….

So, yes, I have decided to make my focus being good to my body, and not stressing about my gains/losses…HOWEVER, I was looking in the mirror last night, and noticed….the appearance of veins on my lower abdomen!! Sweet!!! The fruits of eating clean!!! I haven’t seen those in awhile, but I am sooooo happy they’re back!!! It’s very encouraging.

I will post some update pics soon

haha…So I hit the gym today, and HARD!!! I woke up at 430 this morning, and I was rearin’ to go!! I didn’t get out of the house at the time I wanted to, but that was because I got home late the night before (around 845pm), because I went to the gym after work, because I didn’t get up on time that morning because I didn’t get to bed on time the night before….whew! Do see where I’m going with this??  I have found that in order to get everything done that I need to get done and get in an effective workout, I have to go to bed at 9, and wake up at 5, making sure that my meals are ready, my bags are packed and I have done all my showering before I hit the hay….
ANYHOW, that was kind of a side step to what I wanted to talk about. Yesterday was the beginning of some alterations in my workout program.  I am sticking with the 3 original lifts days that I was already doing, but I am going to add a 2nd leg day, and my leg days look a little bit different-less sets, more reps, squats, leg press, leg curl, calf extensions, lunges, dead lifts, and MUCH MUCH MORE!!!! And on top of that, I am adding a day in the middle of the week where I am just working on abs…I might add a second, if I find that’s not quite doing it for me.
But what I MOSTLY want to talk about is my first time doing HIIT this morning (high intensity interval training, for those of you who don’t know) It     was      AWESOME!!!  I loved it! And I can see why this is such a good cardio workout, and such a good "fat burner"- I looked like a tomato face afterwards!! Which is EXACTLY what I’m going for. It tells me, if nothing else, that I really pushed myself. I can’t wait to do it again tomorrow!
I also have been really working towards lifting to muscle failure.  I read some articles, and realized that a lot of times I just lift till my muscles burn, and there’s a searing pain going through them, but failure is completely different. Lifting until you CANNOT LIFT ANOTHER REP.  I am learning more and more about my body, and how to get the most out of it.

I am also really changing my paradigm about losing weight/toning/building muscle etc… I am always so hard on myself when I don’t see the results come, or I get discouraged when I look down at my arms and don’t see the definition that I want.  What I have been realizing, though, is that there is nothing I can do to burn that fat. I cannot sit down and do the metabolic work that it takes to burn fat and build muscle. I physically cannot do it. That is my body’s job. It does it on it’s own, apart from me.  So, I need to STOP STRESSING MYSELF OUT about how much I’ve lost, how it’s looking etc, because I will never be able to control that process, but what I can ask myself this: "Sarah, are you staying committed? Are you doing the work? Are you treating your body well and enabling it to do this process? Are you on schedule, going to the gym, working your hardest when you are there?"

If the answer is yes, then no worries. I am doing my job. All that I can, so then I can leave my worries behind about losing the fat, gaining the muscle, and my body will do the rest. I’m doing my job, and I have to trust my body to do the rest of the work.

It’s not about how fast the numbers go down, or what you can see in the mirror, the success lies in your commitment and dedication to MAKING YOUR BODY HAPPY!!!!!!! Treating yourself everyday (or 5 days a week or whatever) to A VACATION FROM LIFE!!!! This is your time to get in your own world, forget about every stress or anything else you have to do, and for that hour or hour and a half, it is all about you, and treating yourself right, and giving everything that makes up your body a little TLC…it’s not a chore, you are doing yourself a FAVOR!!!!
SO ENJOY IT!!!!<strong />

Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted.  Overall I’ve done pretty well to keep on track, minus new years…=S First off, I over-lifted the week before, and my muscles were in an immense amount of pain, but that subsided when I let myself rest, and I only ended up missing two days of lifting. But I ate total crap new years eve, and new years day. But, I have been making a come back. I just started back to school, and it’s been a little rough at the get go, but it is actually good, because I am getting back into a routine. Now, recently I found out I have a free ticket to go with my boyfriend and his family on a 10 day Caribbean cruise!!! I was SO excited when I found out! Talk about motivation!! So, I’ve been eating clean for almost a week now, and I have about a month until I go.  My biggest struggle so far is cardio.  I have it planned that 3 days a week I will go outside and run…but I just feel so intimidated  by the thought of that, I think it’s because it’s winter, and I’ve never  run in the winter before (outdoors).  So I guess the smart thing to do would just be to go and do my cardio in the gym, but I don’t want to just give up on running outdoors in the winter.  I just need to do it.  I’ll start with maybe one day a week outside, and 2 @ the gym, and go from there.  Who knows, maybe I simply won’t like it, and I will just spend my winters indoors. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. But this spring, I will definitely be back out there.
I don’t really know how my progress is as far as my goals, but I will repost them, and I think I will take some more progress pictures soon. (I just don’t have access to a very good camera…but I’ll figure something out)

GOALS:

#1: Lose fat around my hips and thighs

#2: Get down to 120lbs

#3: Lose 10% body fat (approx)

4#: Learn discipline and balance in my eating habits

5#: Learn to be consistent

GOAL REASONS:

#1: To feel good about how I look, and be more proportional

#2: So I can wear a smaller pant size, and because it is my ideal weight

#3: To have a more fit-looking physique, and to be able to see muscle tone in my legs (!)

#4: So that I will be healthy and fit for the REMAINDER of my life, not just in spurts

#5: So that I can live out a productive lifestyle, and not fall off the horse every time my emotions or circumstances change.