Inspired by my boot camp girls!

Forgot 2 more things I learned during the seminar from Saturday and I for sure wanted to share. First, for every fruit you consume, you should eat 2 veggies. Secondly, if you are going to a party (say a Super Bowl party this weekend) and you are nervous about all of the food, feel free to bring something to share that you know you can eat. That way you won't be "that person" who doesn't eat all night, or "that person" who can't stop eating everything because you just gave up on the whole food journal thing for that night. HOWEVER, if you do, please remember that tomorrow is another day.

Dinner from the night before: An appropriate serving size of pasta with turkey burger pasta sauce, green beans, and a low fat crescent roll that I put a small amount of cojack cheese in before I rolled it up. I wanted 2 of those so bad!

January 30th

Boot Camp Talk:
So today started the early morning session of boot camp. I explained the food journal challenge, handed out the journals, weighed the girls in, and they did a great job during their workout. I was so excited to see the girls take on the challenge! I will be rooting them on along the way for sure!

Then, I had the mid-morning boot camp. Another great workout! Afterwards, they wanted their food journals, and I explained to them that their challenge will start at the end of February since that was when the next session would begin.  They wanted their journals now.  Of course I gave them a journal and I LOVED IT!  Some even mentioned they had a great breakfast that morning and wanted to get it written down.  Don't think I didn't get a little itty bitty choked up after they left the studio.  :-)

Breakfast: Coffee with the Almond Joy creamer and a bit of sugar, Special K with Berries, Almond Milk, and Frozen Wild Blueberries (BTW, I buy these at Costco and they are so much cheaper!)

Morning Snack: Blueberry Lara Bar

Early Afternoon Workout: 65 minutes total
2 mile warm up run (I call them runs...never call them jogs)

30 minute internal training including weights
run 1 minute
high knees 1 minute
skaters holding medicine ball 1 minute
plank row to rotation (raise straight arm up to ceiling holding weight) 1 minute
single leg dead lift with shoulder press 1 minute each leg
single arm plank rows 1 minute
squat jumps 30 seconds
2 feet side hops 15 secs each side
Squat with bicep curls 1 minute
burpees with push up 2 minutes (OMG!)
froggers to sumo squat 1 minute
reverse lunge with shoulder press 2 minutes
suitcase ab crunches 1 minute
plank row to rotation 1 minute
single leg deadlift to shoulder press 1 minute each leg
single arm plank rows 1 minute
squat jumps 30 seconds
2 feet plank side hops 15 seconds each side
squat with bicep curls 1 minute
burpees to push up 1 minute (Not as long this time:)
frogger to sumo squat 1 minute
reverse lunge with overhead press 1 minute
suitcase ab crunches 1 minute
front plank 1 minute
side plank with tiny hip dips 30 seconds each side
v sit 1 minute

Bike 10 minutes - 6 minutes low intensity and a 4 minute Tabata that put the cherry on top. My legs were shaking!

For more info on Tabatas: http://elmhurstbootcamp.com/uploads/Newsletter_January_2012.pdf

Late Dinner UGH! I mean Lunch: You must know that in Iowa, lunch is dinner and dinner is supper, and I don't care if I've lived in the Chicago suburbs for 15 years, I WILL STILL MIX IT UP! (2:00 pm): Medium Sweet Potato with non-fat cottage cheese, apple and peanut butter, coconut water.

Dinner:

Stuffed Peppers which had quinoa instead of rice (My family are guinea pigs to the quinoa, and my daughter has already given the thumbs down.  The jury is still out on the rest of the fam.  They are not home yet.).  A glass of skim milk.  I halved the peppers and ate one and the other half of my daughter's.  So that's 3/4 of a pepper filled with turkey burger, veggies, beans, and quinoa topped with a little cheese.  Aside from having to get used to the nutty consistancy, I thought they were good.

We'll see how tonight goes, but my plan is to be good!

Food, Detox, and Poop

Dinner from Friday night was not terrible. The group ordered fried calamari and crab cakes for an appetizer, plus there was bread on the table that looked really good. I passed up on the bread, took a very small portion of calamari and also a bite or 2 of the crab cake. Both were very good! Had I not been keeping this journal, I would've had a couple pieces of bread, plus would've taken more of each of the appetizers as well. For dinner, I ordered 4 scallops with butternut squash. It was sooooo good! I shared one of my scallops with a friend, and she in turn, shared a small portion of her peppercorn steak salad. Her salad was so good too! We skipped dessert. As far as drinks, I had a couple dirty martinis with the blue cheese olives. Yep, downed 4 of those olives along with the martini. After dinner, we had a couple more drinks before heading home. I enjoyed 2 Miller Lites. During dinner, I drank ice water and downed quite of bit of it.

We got home and I was hungry. I decided to make a jelly sandwich on 1/2 pita. Mind you, I skipped the peanut butter part, which I totally would've had if I wasn't doing this blog. This was at midnight...big no no! But, I'm honest and this is what I did.

Saturday, January 28

Breakfast: Special K with Berries, Almond Milk, Frozen wild blueberries, and coffee

Morning Snack: Orange

Lunch: I made chicken salad lettuce wrap with lite mayo, a bit of chipotle mayo, onion, celery, and diced up red pepper. I added a little salt and pepper. I also ate about a 1/2 cup of Greek yogurt with honey and a dash of cinnamon.

Something fantastic came out of lunch! My daughter asked what I was making. I made her a chicken lettuce wrap, and the first thing of her mouth was, "it's delicious!" Score for mom! This whole experience might actually be beneficial for the family as well. I tried with my son, and I was so proud that he tried it even though he didn't like it. Big surprise.

Snack: I took the kids out for a healthy low-cal smoothie. We ordered a 34 oz. one and split it 3 ways.

Snack: Cherry Pie Lara Bar

Dinner: Turkey (3 small slices) and American Cheese 5 inch sub sandwich, and a small piece of birthday cake. When we got home from the party, I opened our front door to the sweet aroma of take out pizza that my Wade and my son brought home...crap! BUT, I fought the urge and opted not to partake...since I had that piece of cake. Let me tell you...that cake was so good!

That's my food intake for day 6.

I do need to share with you about a seminar I went to today about the 21 Day Standard Process detoxification program. Normally, I can't imagine taking part in one of these, but after listening to Dr. Kelly talk about it, it seems very doable. Especially because you are eating food that is easily accessible and I like. I'm opting not to take part in the detox because I really want to concentrate on my food journal instead, but at another time, I would consider such a program.

During the talk, my intake of diet pop was brought up. I know that diet pop is not good for you, but I've chosen to ignore it because I think it tastes so good! But I did not ingest any yesterday, and I still survived:) Maybe I'll also try to not drink it for the duration of my food journaling, but I'm not promising anything! OK, so I listened and learned a ton about the body and how the liver and kidneys work hard to get rid of toxins we put in our bodies. If we rid ourselves of these toxins, we'll feel a lot better. I also learned that everyone should poop 18 inches a day. I don't think I do that, but my son...well, I think he certainly hits that goal every single day. Very impressive. Coincidentally, my daughter and I had a talk about poop that morning. I told her a story about an Oprah episode I watched a few years ago when she had Dr. Oz on. Love that guy! He educated me about poop that I will never forget. For example, poop that floats has a lot of fat in it. He said that poop should sink and be in the shape of an "S". I'm just saying... I mean, who doesn't look at their poop?

January 29th

Breakfast: I prepared 3 whole eggs, 2 additional egg whites, 1/4 c. milk, and a dash of pepper to make scrambled eggs. I ate 1/3 of it, and Wade ate the rest. I also had one piece of bacon, and a piece of toast with margarine and cinnamon and sugar. 10 oz. of coffee and a small glass of orange juice.

Snack: Orange

Lunch: Chicken Salad from yesterday in a pita, lettuce salad with a few pine nuts, croutons, and creamy balsamic vinaigrette dressing. A glass of skim milk.

That's all! I'll finish up the rest of my day next time:)  At this point, I feel good physically and emotionally.  I'm proud of the self-control that I've been exhibiting and I hope it continues.

January 27

Did you know that the potassium in a banana flushes out excess sodium, giving you a flatter belly?  I did not know that.  Bananas haven't been a favorite of mine, but now I may eat one every now and then.

Onto the food journal...

Thursday, January 26

Breakfast - Kellogg's Special K with Berries cereal, Almond Milk, Frozen Blueberries and coffee with the Almond Joy creamer and sugar.

Lunch - OK, this gets interesting.  At a certain cafe, I order my usual tuna lettuce wrap.  The girl says to me, "So how are you liking the tuna?"  I reply, "Well, the last 2 seemed to be a little to mayonnaise-y to me.  I wondered if you changed up the way you were making them."  She then says, "We're buying the tuna premade through a food service."  BUMMER!!!  The tuna does not taste as good and I'm sure wasn't as healthy as it being homemade right there on the premises.  I was sooooo sad.  So I opted for an egg beaters wrap (whole wheat) instead with a Coke Zero and Baked Original Lays potato chips.  When the wrap came out, it was big.  I thought to myself, how much egg beaters were put in here?  If I wasn't keeping a journal, I would've polished off the whole wrap.  Instead, I ate half of it and brought the rest home.  That's control!  Oh, and it was very good!  I'll continue to make my own tuna lettuce wraps at home now.  :(

Water is being consumed this afternoon.  Gotta work on the water consumption!

Snack 2:25 pm- Tropical Fruit LaraBar.  It's just ok...not as good as the lemon one.  Mind you...these bars range between about 190 calories to 240 calories!  How I justify this is by repeating to myself, "this is my one afternoon snack.  I haven't gotten crazy at breakfast and I didn't go crazy at lunch.  If I can continue that, I'll have my LaraBar.  They have very few ingredients and not a single ingredient I can't pronounce.  LIKE!

Side note - I noticed the bar kept me fuller until dinner.  This a problem I have all of the time.  Maybe I solved it.

Dinner - I ate the other 1/2 of my wrap, an orange, and 1/3 cup plain greek yogurt with a 1/2 T. of honey and a dash of cinnamon.  A little something I've learned about greek yogurt...a serving of the one I ate was 1 cup at 120 calories.  To me, that's a lot of yogurt.  So I cut it by 2/3 and only had about 40 calories of yogurt and then add in the honey too.  It was perfect.

Evening Snack - Smart Pop Microwave popcorn and a diet root beer.

Friday, January 27th

Breakfast - Kashi Go Lean Triple Berry Crumble, Almond Milk, Frozen Blueberries, and 10 oz. of a chai tea latte.

Lunch - 1/2 Whole wheat pita with deli chicken and cojack cheese, roasted yellow squash, red pepper, onion, and green pepper with olive oil spray and a bit of seasoning salt, skim milk

Snack - At 2:30, I was dying for a snack, but I'm going to wait 15 more minutes before I did in.  UGH!  OK...ate it...Blueberry LaraBar at 190 calories.  Until dinner it'll be water.

I'm going to wait to share my dinner until my next blog.  We're going out for dinner and drinks tonight so this oughta be interesting.  But, my mantra has always been moderation.  The dinner part...not the alcohol part.  Kinda joking there...  I said I was going to be honest, right? Although, tonight's going to be an early night.   Just to save face, I do not drink alcohol much during the week.  How could I?  I gotta be up so flippin' early!

OK, moving on...

I promised I'd share my workouts.  Today's was a quick one since my time was limited.  I had to pick up my son from preschool.  Priorities:)

Little disclaimer:  Since I'm a certified personal trainer, I just want to be safe and share what I did.  This does not mean that I think you should do it.  I do not know the fitness level of my readers, so don't want to be liable for any injuries.  K?

Here's what I did:
16 minute bike (warm up so it was moderate intensity)

4 exercises that I repeated 3 times.
100 Mountain Climbers (each leg coming in equals 1)
12 Incline Chest Flys
16 Single Leg Balance Push Backs, 8 on each side (my boot campers may know what these are)
12 Calf Raises (Set 1, Heels Out; Set 2, Heels straight back; Set 3 (heels in)

3 exercises that I repeated 3 times.
12 tricep dips with alternate arm raises
10 Burpees with Push-ups
12 Decline Bicep Curls

7 minute cardio interval elliptical machine

This workout finished way to fast!  Took about 45 minutes.

If you're journaling, stick with me!  My boot campers start next week.  The journals have been purchased!

January 25th

Well, I commented on Facebook that I should blog about the lifestyle changes I've started over the past couple months.  I was joking...

 It started with me finishing a half marathon in November.  After I finished, I went into my long-distance-running-hiatus-until-it's-time-to-start-my-next-12-week-training mentality. Speaking of... I start back on February 13th.  Only...a...few...short...weeks...!

Since Thanksgiving (BTW, nice time to start this with the holidays), I've completely changed up my own workouts.  It's been fun and challenging at the same time.  Basically, I work my ass off for 60-90 minutes.  If you see me at the gym, you'll see me on a cardio machine (different types) for 15-20 minutes or so, then do 30-45 minutes of high intensity cardio coupled with strength training.  After I finish that, I'll hop back on a machine to cool down for 10-20 minutes, then most times than not, I'll end it with some core work.  This occurs 3-4 times a week and the other 1 or 2 times that week, you'll see me on the ellipitical, treadmill, bike, or stair mill followed by more core work.  I will post a few of my workouts soon.

It started out with a "30 day ramp up my workout challenge" which then turned into, "hmmmm....maybe if I made some eating changes, I'd see some results even faster".

Which brings me to this blog.  For those of you who know me, my life is pretty much an open book.  I often will re-tell a story to someone who has already heard it before.  I get that from my mom:)  However, putting it blog-style scares me, because I'm afraid of putting myself out there and flub up on the eating part.  I'm also afraid of others critiquing my food intake.  BUT...maybe if I do take on this challenge, I'll be able to help others in the process.  Right?

So...I started a food journal.  OMG!  Nothing like thinking twice about what goes in my mouth and holding myself accountable constantly.  I'll steer clear of poor choices because I don't want to see it in my journal.

This started Monday, January 23rd and will go through March 11th.  49 days....   Coincidently, and I swear this was not planned, goes right up to my family's trip to Florida.  Now, remember, I am do not follow any regimented plan.  Rather, I eat in moderation and being a former Iowan, I like my meat and potatoes.  My goal here is to learn how to make conscious smart decisions on my food choices.  I WILL FEEL BETTER AND HOPEFULLY WILL HELP OTHERS IN THE PROCESS.

Just to jump back a bit...I own a boot camp business, and was looking at ways to get my clients more involved in their health in addition to exercising.  I said to myself, "Aha!  I will offer a challenge in which those who choose to participate will keep a food journal for 6 weeks (special thanks to one particular friend and boot camper who has seen great results from journaling).  I will start a week early and let them know that I am in this with them every step of the way! YEP, I will practice what I preach!  Amen, sistas!"  My clients will receive a food journal, get weighed (privately, of course), and write their weight on page 1.  After the 6 weeks, the person who loses the highest percentage of their body weight will be crowned "Grand Food Journal Champion"!  I have an idea for the reward, but won't share it now:)

Back to my food journal, I'm wondering do my readers want to see/read what I'm eating?  I'm not getting super technical and counting calories, even though I do look at labels so have a ball park number per day.  I'm also making a conscious effort to chew gum when I craving something sweet.  I love Ice Cubes gum.  I think it's stays fresher longer and doesn't get hard.  Oh, and I am drinking water even though I need to drink more.  OK, will do:)  Almost forgot....I love sweets, especially chocolate. I'm willing to bet that I consumed chocolate everyday from Thanksgiving thru this past Sunday.

So since Monday...here's my schtick...

1/23 - Breakfast:  Kashi Triple Berry Crunch cereal, Almond Milk, Frozen Blueberries, 12 oz. coffee with Almond Joy Coffee Creamer, and 1 t. sugar.

Lunch:  Deli Chicken and cojack cheese on a whole wheat pita, an orange, and skim milk

Snack:  A couple handfuls of pretzals and another 12 oz coffee with the same creamer and sugar as above.  A Special K Berry Bar.

Dinner:  Chicken Pad Thai with veggies (Holy smokes!  Didn't look at the calories until after the consumption!), and a diet root beer.

1/24 - Breakfast: same as Monday

Lunch:  2 tuna lettuce wraps.  It has lite miracle whip, grapes, and celery in it., Coconut water, and 12 oz. coffee with Almond coffee creamer and sugar.

Snack:  Snicker Protein Bar I found in my dresser from a expo I went to in November.  At this time, I realized that I need something more for snacks, and today I went to Jewel to stock up on LaraBars.  By the way, they are on sale at Jewel.  Which also reminds me, I've got 4 of those damn game pieces I need to open up!  Stupid game...

Dinner:  Buffalo Wild Wings, 1/2 chicken tender wrap and side salad.  Diet Coke.  Oh, and I finished off a boat load of my kid's fries.  DAMN!

1/25 - Breakfast: same as stated above.

Lunch - 1 tuna lettuce wrap with grapes and celery, and a banana

Snack - Lemon LaraBar - Super Yumminess!  Did I mention they are on sale at Jewel?  An apple at probably the hardest part of the day...4:30.

Dinner - Turkey Burger with a Bun, roasted squash, red papper, orange pepper, and onion.  Before roasting, I sprayed them with olive oil spray and lightly salted them with seasoning salt.  Skim milk

Evening - water, and a dark hot chocolate cocoa

OK, so there's my first 3 full days.  If I can help just one person on this 49 day journey, it'll be well worth it.  Please share with others.

47 days to go!  So who's with me?
Jill

PS - My blogs will NEVER be this long.  Just had a lot of info to share on how I got here in the first place.  Thanks, FB friends...