Last night's weigh-in.... Apparently forgot to update last Thursday's weigh-in results....

Last night's weigh-in....

I lost 1.5 pounds over Christmas! Not bad! I was just hoping to break even! I'm now down 48.5 pounds total!


Apparently forgot to update last Thursday's weigh-in results....

So in reviewing my blog, I don't see that I posted my results from last Thursday's weigh-in. I had lost a pound, if I remember correctly. Not much, but oh well.
We're talking about possibly increasing my calories as I may not be eating enough. Sounds weird, huh? Eating more to lose weight. We'll see.....

Christmas.... I weigh-in tonight....

Christmas....

I spent Christmas Eve night at my mom's with my family like I always do. We eat sandwiches, dips, chips/crackers, shrimp, sardines, etc. I had my first can of pop in a long time that night. I drank a Pepsi (not diet....I will NOT drink diet pop except for maybe a diet 7up).
I made some hummus that I brought with me. I used very little olive oil in it. I used chick peas, garlic (one whole head of garlic for 3 cans of chick peas) and one can of artichoke hearts. I used maybe a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. It was really good and very healthy!
I don't generally follow recipes...I might glance at one once to see what the ingredients are then from that point on I try some of this and a little of that and see what I come up with. I wish I was a chef....I almost went to school for culinary arts....
Anyway, I made some good choices and some so-so choices. Overall, none terrible. I just probably had more than I should have.

Christmas Day I went to my grandma's as usual. Normally I would have had big portions of everything and would've gone back for seconds of about everything, but not this year. I got one plate and had moderate amounts of the things I wanted. I did have, throughout the day, a few pieces of lefse (Norwegian flat bread that has butter and sugar on it) and a couple of kringle (Norwegian cookie in the shape of a figure 8 that you spread butter on....I used 'I can't believe it's not butter'). I didn't eat any pie. I loaded up all day long on broccoli and cauliflower.
Again, no terrible choices, but I could've done better. I did much better than other years!


I weigh-in tonight....

I'll be weighing-in tonight right after work. Hopefully I at least stayed even over Christmas. If so, I'll be back to losing next week.... Stay tuned for numbers tomorrow....

Family comments....

So in case some family reads my blog (which I don't think a single one of them does) I won't identify who said what.
Now, I don't think that what was said was meant negatively or anything of the sort, but some of it was frustrating nonetheless. And again, most of the people in my family have nothing but positive, supportive things to say....

I was talking with a couple family members over the holidays about my journey thus far and they were asking what I eat. I mentioned that I eat pretty much the same things every day but that I may switch up veggies but that's about it. This person said that it wasn't good to do that and that I'll burn out by doing that. They took little comfort in the fact that I had discussed this with my nutritionist and we agreed it was a good idea and to switch things up if I felt burnt out (which I haven't at all). The thing that made me laugh inside was that this was coming from a thin person who has never had a weight issue.

The other comment was from someone in the same conversation. When I mentioned that I ate salmon every night, they said that salmon has mercury in it and that it was dangerous and that I shouldn't eat so much of it. The next day I went to their freezer to get some ice and what was in the freezer? The EXACT same brand of salmon that I eat every night. I wanted to ask them if I should throw it away for them so that they didn't get mercury poisoning! I kept my mouth shut, though. :-)

Wednesday's workout....

So Wednesday's workout was more of the same. I did 40 minutes on the cross-trainer and burned some 500+ calories. I average a 10 minute mile on it, so that means that I did about 4 miles. My exercising heart rate continues to stay much lower than when I initially started working out!
From the cross-trainer, we went to the weights and lifted for 20-30 minutes then did some ab work.

This morning's workout!...

Wow.
Once again...
Wow.

I kinda impressed myself today. I got to the gym a bit earlier than usual, so Deb and I decided to have me warm up on the cross-trainer for 15 minutes or so before class (Friday is class day). So I started working out on the cross-trainer and after a while I realized it was 7:05 and Deb wasn't around and realized that class had started. I didn't want to go in late, so I kept going on the cross-trainer.
I ended up going for 55 minutes!!! Not only that, but my speed was between 6.5 and 7mph the ENTIRE time (mostly around 7). That's AWESOME. When I started out back in October or whenever, I struggled with 4mph.
I ended up going 55 minutes and just over 6 miles. I burned 720 calories!!! That's over 1/2 the amount of calories I take in in a day! Not sure how many calories I burn when lifting weights and doing ab exercises, but add that in and I'm sure I burned a bunch of calories!

When working out on the cross-trainer I never felt that winded and after I got off of it, I recovered right away and wasn't exhausted or anything. Not bad!

Biggest Loser finale last night...

So I watched the Biggest Loser finale last night. This is the first season of the show that I've ever watched.
Talk about inspiring. There were people on that show that were much larger than me. While I was really big and still am big, I always had some decent level of muscle underneath it all. Some of those people looked like they had no muscle when they started and had just layers and layers of fat. Now, I'm not making fun of or judging them, just observing.
The transformations that these people went thru was absolutely amazing. Nothing short of jaw-dropping! If I had a nickel for every time I said, "WOW" last night, I'd have at least 50 cents!

One interesting thing that I found out from watching the finale is that 3 more months pass by after the final 4 people leave the campus. So that's a total of 6 months for their weightloss. The crazy thing is, I'm losing as much in a week as some of those people on the show were losing in a week and they're working out every day. I'm working out 3 days a week for only an hour or a bit more a day. I'm proud. I don't even have the possibility of $250,000 pushing me along!

Workout this morning...

All of the cross-trainers were being used this morning except for this one old one, so we went to the bike and did 24 minutes. I think I did 8 miles or so on it in 24 minutes.
We then went to the cross-trainers since they were open. We did about another 20 minutes! That's 44 minutes of cardio for those keeping score at home!

We then went to the weights did what we were supposed to do Friday when I overslept. We increased the weight level on all of the machines by either one or two levels. We then set out to do 8 reps on each machine. I'd lift then slowly return to starting position by way of a four-count. Let me tell you, I could freaking feel it. Like I said, we were shooting for 8 reps on each machine since it's harder to lift slowly, but I did more than 8 on every machine. Some machines I did over 20 reps on and some I did 10 or 15 reps. Either way, there was more progress than we were shooting for! I could really feel it on each machine. Right now, I'm not feeling it as much but I imagine that I'll be feeling it later.

I'm surprised through this whole process that I'm not more sore. We lift every workout and I alsways push myself to where I can't do another rep, but I'm never really sore from it. I feel great!