Vacation is OVER

So I got back from Las Vegas on Friday night… I’ll skip over all the delicious food I ate. But I do want to talk about how I actually lost weight surprisingly enough. I think the amount of water I drank helped. I’m from the Midwest, we drink water when we are thirsty lol. In Vegas, you have to drink all day or you dehydrate and die. No one loves a migraine more than me *insert eye roll*. I averaged about 13k steps a day out there minus Saturday, I had a wedding. Sunday I went to C2E2 which was also a lot of walking at the nerd convention. I did find the gym at Caesar’s, it was ranked one of the top gyms on the strip. It wasn’t amazing… curious to know what a horrible gym looks like. Only downside to this gym is it closes at 6pm everyday. Like REALLY??? It’s Las Vegas! I am pretty proud that I went to the gym while on vacation. I’m determined to stick to this food diary and working out multiple times a week. I have friends that help motivate me to get my booty to the gym. And I have my apps that help me not over eat. I wouldn’t mind getting one of those workout apps, but they are all expensive subscriptions. I don’t have that money right now. AND if I did I would just get a personal trainer. The free session I got from the gym was awesome! Just out of my budget at the moment. And on that note, I’m off to the gym!

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Shake what ya mama gave ya!

I started doing Zumba about 3 weeks ago. The first time I went I felt like a goof and EXTRA white. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only uncoordinated person in the room. Second time I went, it felt better cause I knew the steps from before. I also learned how not to make my knees hate me… They were like NOPE after the first time. I have the knees of an elderly man lol! 3rd time last week was amazing! I just went for it! I didn’t care if anyone was watching or thinking I was not good enough. I sweat my ass off too, and I don’t sweat.

Funny story break: I was caught dancing to my Zumba moves at work by one of my coworkers… he thought I was nuts!

I’m really looking forward to next time. But it will be on pause for a week while I’m in Vegas!! It’s my first time and I’m excited as all hell! I actually plan on bringing my workout clothes to Vegas. I’m down in weight… I know I’m going to eat like a fat cow there gain it all back in all the food I will be eating there. Pray for my booty people!!!

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Calories aren’t my friend!

I learned a long time ago that everything has calories… EVERYTHING! If you don’t know a calorie is a unit that can be burned, hence why everything has calories.

Now if you read in my March goals, I have been tracking my food diary for over 11 days now. MyFitnessPal isn’t as forgiving as the Fitbit app is. I only have about 1,700 calories for the day to lose weight for my active lifestyle. I have to move all day or else it takes calories away from me to eat!! The madness!!! Thankfully I average about 11k steps a day. I try to go to the gym at least 3x a week. I also work in a warehouse that can keep me pretty busy depending on the time of year. That’s the basics of my life… the shitty part is I LOVE TO EAT! I even have my associate in Pastry & Baking. Soooooo that means sweets and chocolate are my biggest weak spot… and carbs. Which both are very horrible to eat if you are trying to lose weight. To say it’s been hard is an understatement. I’ve had to tell myself many times a day not to eat food… I’m also a big boredom eater. I have no self control so this has definitely been an adventure without food. I’m unofficially down 2.9 pounds so far, which is a nice feeling. I haven’t had a cheat day yet… I was supposed to go to Stan’s Donuts, BUT I chose to nap all day. Sucks because 1. no donuts and 2. the gym closes early on the weekends. I had to force myself not to stop at Dunkin after dinner… I will not waste calories on basic donuts like that lol. So pray for me or light a candle cause it’s going to be a rough year. I need to be in a bikini in a week for Vegas and again in June for the Bahamas. I’ve already looked up some amazing sweet shops in Vegas too…

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March Goals

***So every 1st of the month I want to write down all my goals for the month. And at the end of the month, I will review how I felt about said goals!

Goals

  1. Get my ass to the gym more. February was a bad month for me mentally. I want to get back into a regular routine. I started going to Zumba on Wednesdays with a friend from high school.
  2. Doing my food diary everyday! I go through waves of really wanting to do it and getting lazy. I started using MyFitnessPal app again… I FINALLY got my Fitbit to sync my steps with it. I like how it shows me my macros and shows them in pie charts… I like pie…
  3. Use my Fasciablaster after the gym. Plus, 1 or 2 more days a week. I’m already seeing some results from it.

I want to go slow with the goals, because I don’t want to overload myself. If I fail at one I’ll get distracted and stop. I want to add in weight and maybe pictures if I feel brave enough!

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Mulligan

February has been a bad month for me. It started off decent with vacation!!Then took a nosedive pretty quickly once I went to my neurologist. Long story short, my brain might be failing more… or maybe just diabetes… Either way its horrible news to me. So I was too depressed/upset to really workout or function for that matter. Then my boyfriend got sick, and I was helping him with that. Thankfully, I didn’t get sick. I catch colds and viruses soooooo easy. By this point I’ve only worked out 4 times this month, practically all in one weeks time. NOW it’s half way through February and I have no motivation & no energy from my period. FUN STUFF! I’ve been dealing with a lot of BS this month and I don’t know if I can come back this month. I’m a Monday or the 1st of the month kind of person. But since I use working out as a great stress reliever, I’ll probably be back in the gym soon.

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Failure

I tried really hard… BUT I couldn’t do the water challenge more than 4 days. I’m a FAILURE. In my defense, I didn’t feel any different. I had a couple of friends that were doing this before me, and they wouldn’t shut up about how great they felt. I felt the same. Maybe because I do drink a nice amount at work already. I did decide to only drink pop or tea when I went out to eat. So, that means only water at home sadly. I think I have to give up McDonald’s sweet tea too. I had one the other day and it just tasted wrong. It’s probably for the better. Those bad boys are sooo not healthy for you.

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I like it HAWT

So after the furnace died the other night, I was really looking forward to hot yoga! It’s set to 80-100°F. I think I overheard the instructor say it got to 116°F. I was ok with it for the most part, cause I work in a warehouse. That’s just typical summer temps. The really cool thing about it was it was in a special room just for the hot yoga and the floor had nice padding under the wood flooring. I have bad knees, so I appreciated that. I’ve tried yoga twice now and I think I can fully said I hate yoga. If you love yoga, I do highly recommend the hot yoga. But my back and wrist do NOT like yoga. I can’t even do push ups. And no not even the “girlie” ones either. My wrist hate any pressure on them. I’m not sure where that pain came from but it’s been like that for years… oh well.

On the way out I stopped at the juice bar in the gym… ya we fancy! I saw they had protein bars and well I chose sleep over eating. I was SUPER starving after class. I already use Optimum Nutrition for my amino energy and really like it… so I assume this protein bar can’t be bad. It was not bad actually. Smelled super chocolately(!!) but didn’t taste as strong. 15g protein, 5g sugar, and 18g carbs. I totally give this bar a B for a quick refuel. Oh downside, it was quite a mess when I was eating in the car… that could have totally been just me being a mess.

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Polar Vortex

Here in the great Midwest, we are having a Polar Vortex. Thankfully it’s over! So I finally went to the gym today… YAY! Shit, I was finally able to leave the house without my face hurting. I started drinking my 100 oz of water a couple days ago. I’ve been doing pretty well at that. Not really hitting the mark but close. I haven’t noticed anything about my body yet like others have mentioned. I’m just peeing more lol. Today was leg day at the gym, I know I’m going to be feeling it tomorrow. The workout plan my “trainer in the making” friend gave me KICKS my ass. I start off with 15 minutes on the treadmill to warm up then on to machines and squats. I weirdly love squats. I just really want that apple/peach/heart butt sooooo bad! But on the positive side, I got my face blaster from Ashley Black!! If you don’t know what or who that is, I highly recommend you check out her website here. I got to blast my butt, that sounds wrong lol, in the sauna without annoying people with the full size fasciablaster. I would have stayed longer but I got a text saying my furnace went out… FML!

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Water is life…?

Ok, so most of us know that our bodies are made up of 70-75% water. If you didn’t, you’re welcome. A couple of my friends have been talking about the gallon of water a day challenge. I even have a trainer in the making friend tell me “Now, to fully understand what I am talking about, let me define enough. 100 oz of plain, nothing added to it, water is my benchmark for ‘enough.'”. I can drink about 60-80 oz in the summer no problem. I work in a warehouse where I sweat all day. BUT… the winter is my downfall. I don’t find water enjoyable to just drink for fun. Weirdos

I’m starting tomorrow with this water nonsense lol. I’m a heavy sweat tea and pop drinker. I think it will help tremendously with my muscle soreness I get from working out. I have a feeling I will be peeing forever and a day once this starts… I’ll keep you updated.

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Protein bars!

*I’m not a professional body builder, doctor, nutritionist, or anything special… just an amateur giving my two cents.

Protein shakes? Whey? Soy? Pea? There’s so many ways to get protein. And of course there’s always meat! All I know is that I don’t get enough of it in my diet. And I recently found out most women don’t get enough carbs, so I’m not alone with this. My whole life carbs have been my best friend! Thankfully I was very active in sports and outside activities to not grow up chubs. Even to this day, I will eat a million sides, veggies, snacks, anything over eating meat. It’s just not my main focus. It’s probably why I was always tired and skinny.

Soooooo… I decide it was time to eat better and more well rounded. I tried shakes, not my thing. That “protein” taste is so gross. I do happen to like 1stphorm.com‘s protein shakes. But I hate drinking my calories. I figured that next I’d try protein bars. First, I had to go to Facebook to ask my friends what they liked. That’s where I started doing half ass research into what’s a good protein bar. But I’m also super picky about flavors too.

I thought I would give you all my .02¢ on these popular brands…

    -Builder’s Protein Clif bars = the smell was nice. The ingredient list is nice, all organic and rain forest friendly. Protein to carb ratio is 1:1. It tastes like a kudos bar, I don’t know if they are around anymore lol. The protein flavor was fairly light. I give this one a B.
    -Quest Protein Bar = the smell was super chocolatey. It looks like a brick of hard mush. It has stevia for sweetness which I hate. And it tasted like a weak tootsie roll. It was so hard to chew my jaw hurt by the end. I give this one a C-.
    -Zone Perfect = this one was highly recommended. The smell and look was ok. Not enough chocolate for my liking. It was very strong on the protein gritty taste. It was the worst of the bunch from that picture. I give it a D.
    -Premier Protein = I like the pre-made protein shakes. But their bars where blah! The peanut butter had no taste. I give this one a C+.
    -Robert Irvine’s Fit Crunch = these are massive! And the have 30g of protein, by far the largest and most protein bar I’ve tried. They have 7 layers of yumminess to them! I loved these. They tasted like eating candy bars. Big down side, is the alcohol sugars. I read that that’s bad for you. And I don’t need that much protein. Also, my chocolate chip one didn’t have chips lol. WTF?! I give it a B, only cause of the alcohol sugars. I wish they made half size ones.
    -Bulletproof Collagen Protein Bar = not going to lie, I haven’t tried this one yet… I’m scared of the collagen part lol.
    -Epic = way smaller bar, not a fan. But it only has 12g of protein. I wanted to try smaller amounts to see if I’d like them more. Main ingredient is dates, HATE them. If you like them, you are psychopath will love this bar. It’s very flavorful. I give it a C, because dates.
    -RX bars = their big claim to fame is only 4 ingredients or whatever. Again, DATES! This one wasn’t as good. The flavor was more blah and seemed more artificial than the Epic bar. I give this one a D.

Final decision is… the Clif bars. I eat these on work days with fruit and a salad. It helps with my massive love of carbs. It helps with my starvation at work. Now if only I could help the association with dinner right after work…

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