12 Week Challenge - Day 1 - Success

Wow... Day one went perfectly as planned... Other than I feel like I have eaten non-stop all day long... 

This is the breakdown of my day...

5am: Alarm goes off, I can here my coffee brewing in the kitchen, and make it out of bed. Obstacle #1 tackled. :) So I enjoy my cup of coffee with 1/4c of almond milk. Heavenly. 

5:15am: Start my weight workout. Clearly I have a lot of room for improvement... Everything was heavy and I could feel every single rep like I had been lifting all morning... Focus was back and biceps. Here is the actual workout: Incline Bench Row, Unilateral Dummbell Row, Dummbell Pullover, One Arm Plank Row, Kettlebell Deadlift, Dumbbell Curls, Hammer Dumbbell Curls, and Dummbell Cleans. It was a good little workout.

5:50am: Pilates! (Okay, this is totally not on the Fighter Diet Program, but I love the way Pilates makes me feel and stretches me out) Followed by some Foam Rolling which I love. 

6:30am: Girls up and around, dressed, fed, lunches and out the door. 

7:00am: RUN! 30 minutes on my treadmill... It was a sweet, sweet reunion. :) I felt good. My foot felt good. My pace was fair, but not slow. :) 

That's when the eating began........... After getting around for work, I made my first meal...

Meal #1:

1c egg whites

1 whole tomato

1 whole onion

1 whole bell pepper

Got to work with my huge, ugly lunch pail and at 10am, already had to eat the second meal... Whoa... Food overload already. 

Meal #2:

10 strawberries

1/4c Greek yogurt

I get this down while at my desk doing paperwork, and before I am ready, already have to eat again... Geez.... Holy food. So head home for lunch with Bill, who is home sick, and eat yet again... I forgot to take a picture...

Meal #3:

4oz Salmon

2c Stirfry Veggies

1/2 can of Baby Corn (interestingly they are allowed, but normal corn is not...)

Work gets a little hectic, and I don't eat my 3pm meal at that time but rather at 5pm when I get home..... 

Meal #4:

20 Cooked Carrots

2c Green Beans

1c Broccoli 

So........ Much........... Food.............. Pauline Nordin's whole take on this food thing is, if you are stuffing yourself full of these healthy veggies, 50% of my caloric allowance, and let me tell you it feels like pounds more food than I normally eat for the same calories, you won't feel tempted to eat crappy food, won't have cravings and will fill full... And let me tell you, this theory is SPOT ON... 

Meal #5:

4oz Chicken Breast

8oz Yam

2c Cabbage

1 Whole Onion

Then again, there will be more eating......... I haven't managed to eat again yet, so no pic quite yet... 

Meal #6:

1/4c Cottage Cheese 

Orange

I could die from all these vegetables... For real... Die. 

All in all, day one a BIG SUCCESS. :)

Fighter Diet Day One Eve!

Well this is giving to prove to be a lot of work!!! Sheesh. After an hour of meal prep, got my 10am snack, my lunch and my 3pm snack prepped for tomorrow... That doesn't include breakfast, dinner or my 7pm snack... Holy food. 

 But did get everything figured out, which turned out to be a lot of figuring... And my workout schedule planned for tomorrow too... I could not be more stoked about this little adventure!!! 

Stay tuned, tomorrow is gonna be a crazy first day!!!!

Twelve Week Challenge

This morning I recieved 9 e-books from Pauline Nordin at Fighter Diet. I am so excited about this challenge for a couple of reasons. 

1. I do not do well without very clear goals and a very clear plan. Both of those things are totally in place.
2. I need something that focuses on cardio (which I love, clearly running is key for me).
3. And also focuses on lifting. When I was CrossFitting, I really liked the way that my body looked with the additional tone that lifting added. Running seems to make these muscles longer and weaker.
4. It incorporates and entire eating program, that I can stick to. Its primarily vegetable based, followed by protein, and then everything else. Which is the way I prefer to eat anyways.
5. I am ready to make some changes to my body!!!

Well, part of the deal is a before picture and measurements... Neither of which I am super excited about, but Bill is willing to be the photographer (as embarrassing as this will be). Luckily for you, there will be no before photo posted here, but maybe when I finish the five weeks, and the AFTER photo is so awesome, you can see the before photo! Ha!!! 

You will be fortunate enough to listen to me blog on and on about my progress. :) Woot!

Running Low on Iron

Well, my blood work shows, once again, Borderline Anemic... Being low on iron, makes my feel low at life. Low on energy, low on sleep, my mood is less than cheerful... 

Thankfully, I'll be getting an iron taken care of this week, hopefully by Friday and I can successfully get my dragging ass back in gear... And feeling like this:

Sticking to the plan...

Swimming is going quite well, I felt really good last night at the pool, my breathing just seems to be improving every time I go, and I don't feel like I look like drowning ape anymore. Got home yesterday afternoon and talked the girls into a five mile bike ride, and they agreed with an ice cream bribe. :) It was really gorgeous out. We were unfortunate enough though to be riding along the levee when they were flushing the sprinklers therefore soaked for about a half mile with freezing cold water, needless to say the girls were less than impressed. They also had swimming following the bike ride, had I drug them out for a run, they would have been ready for a triathlon!!! 

Happy to report even though the blogging world hasn't been put through the torture of seeing my every meal, I have eaten perfectly since my initial post... And let me tell you, it hasn't been easy, it seems the world, both at work and at home has secretly been conspiring against my best efforts to drop a few pounds... at work this week there has been cupcakes in our managers meeting twice, homemade banana bread from one of the few nurses I would eat home cooked food by, brownines, fajitas, a nacho bar and a giant pile of junk food dumped on my desk including a diet Pepsi?!?! But because I have been packing my breakfast, morning snack, lunch and afternoon snack every day plus my water and tea, no temptation, even that cold diet Pepsi has broken my willpower... Today is a busy day for our facility with state legislators in, so getting my workout in this morning will help keep me on track for the day. A run on my treadmill and Pilates. Off to a good start. 

Happy Friday!!! Could not be more ready for this work week to be over. 

Road ID Sponsorship & Another Successful Day!!!!

Today I was notified that I received another running sponsorship. I am really excited about this, as it is a really cool product! Road ID! Check them out! So my mom bought me my first Road ID while living in a very small logging town when I did the majority of my running on back roads, my mom was just sure that I would be hit by a car or logging truck and that no one would know who to call. So she ordered me a Road ID, and I totally loved it! 

My first one was a pink one like this. 

The second one I got was like this, without the badge, also pink. 

My eating was excellent today, and after a great day yesterday, I am feeling good about how I'm eating.  Finished last night off with baked chicken, baked potato and baked butternut squash. 

This morning was Greek Yogurt, raspberries, a banana, granola & green tea. 

 

Followed by a delicious BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad at Zanys with my sweety. 

Dinner was grilled salmon, cooked carrots, and another baked potato with 2T fat free sour cream (I bought a bag of potatoes the same day my mom bought a giant box of them and shared... So expect a ton of potatoes for this three week weight loss...). 

 

Bill and I swam again tonight. I felt great. I'm totally getting the breathing. Felt good. And faster. Woot. So for my earned calories, I'm savoring a glass of Sangria as I type. :) double win. 

Too frigid to run in the morning??? We shall see. 

Race Weight

I've recently been reading a little about this... And the benefits of being at race weight, the increase in speed, better endurance, etc. I am about 8# off of my ideal race weight with three weeks from yesterday until my "make-up marathon", as I will be calling this tiny local marathon. :) 

The plan... I am a planner, and this works very, very effectively for me. My running and workout schedule has been for shit the last few weeks, I have 99 reasons (and a bitch ain't one, lol) why but nothing that isn't easily fixable... 

Issue one, my diet plain flippin sucks. Some of the needed adjustments: Bill and I eat out roughly three lunches or more a week, and he loves carb-loaded dinners, I love cooking, and it isn't working, ELIMINATE EATING OUT & MAKE HEALTHY DINNERS... Diet soda, I love it, and it hates me, and usually loads on a pound or two of water weight, last one in the fridge this morning is now gone, therefore I won't be buying more, REMOVE DIET PEPSI & ENTER TEA. Secret snacking... I will admit that often, especially Tuesdays and Thursdays when I get home two hours before Bill, I snack on the most unhealthy things in the house, UNPLANNED SNACKING IS ENDING. Water, I am not a fan of water, I know I should be, I understand all the benefits, I just plain don't drink enough of it... This is coming to an end too, PACKING AROUND THE BUBBA CUP is happening. I log my food on MyFitnessPal, and it is extremely effective, unless I feel like a hog and quit part way through the day, usually around 3pm, so back to LOGGING EVERYTHING I EAT OR DRINK. These major adjustments will make it easy for me to lose these 8# prior to November 2nd, planning to lose three pounds this week, three pounds the next and two the last week before the marathon. 

Workouts... Because I will need to fit in another long run prior to race day, I will need to work that in this Sunday... So my training schedule looks a little like this:
     Monday: Pilates, Spinning 1 hour
     Tuesday: Treadmill 5 miles, Swimming 15 laps
     Wednesday: Pilates, Spinning 1 hour
     Thursday: Treadmill 5 miles, Swimming 15 laps
     Friday: Rest
     Saturday: Easy 3 miles
     Sunday: 18 miles, long and slow

So far today, great little breakfast of 1/2c non-fat greek yogurt, granola and banana. Brought my BUBBA cup to work and have already polished of a cup of green tea. 

Breakfast:

Morning snack: (sorry no pic) Yummy Orange!

Lunch: (Bill isn't working, so meeting him at home for lunch went as planned today! Hurray!) Made a baked potato (if it's in the microwave is it still a baked potato?), topped it with a half of a sauteed onion, and 2T of Tillamook's fat free sour cream. This was too heavenly to be only 157 calories, but it really was. SWEET SUCCESS. 

Afternoon Snack: (sorry again, no pic, and won't be eaten til around 3pm) 1 oz of almonds

Dinner: Grilled Salmon, Corn and some yummy brown rice... Pic may come later... hard to say.