Scales, Y U NO be Accurate?

So if you read my last post, you know I've been for realz tryna lose some lbs.  I honestly think it's working...I'm apparently down 2-3 lbs since the last time I posted something here...

However...

The scale could be wrong...

Because each scale gives a different damn number every time you get on it...

Scales, Y U NO be accurate?!

These ol' rickety scales be done had me losing so much weight I look like a crackhead or something.  I can't...but if it's right, I think I have about 3 or so more lbs to go.  Satan tried to goup me today...gave me some ol' naaasty hunger pangs just because kid sister guilted me into taking some of her brownies into work with me.  I know it was him because nothing about my routine, including what I ate for breakfast had changed.  But my God is a good God and He came to the rescue!  Literally just as I put the first fork full of brownie (don't you judge me) in my mouth, somebody at work came and told me there were free sandwiches in the bistro.  Got me a mystery meat chicken salad sandwich that HIT. THE. SPOT.  No need for brownies after that.

As for my routine, I'm now doing 20 min on the Jacobs Ladder, followed by a couple min of ab work and 3 weight lifting exercises, then 15 min of more cardio (treadmill, elliptical, etc.), then 3 more weight exercises, the 5-10 min of cardio again (this one is usually the treadmill.  Today I used the second shift of cardio to do some total body exercises, 30 sec each:  burpees, mountain climbers, wide leg mountain climbers, and some moves I stole from Insanity.  Yeah, I said it.  STOLE.  Thanks.  I did wide leg mountain climbers this time around because it's leg day...I might not do those tomorrow.  We. Shall. See. how the spirit moves me when the time comes.  When I was done with everything, it was about 13 min.  I spent the last 2 doing more ab work.

In all honesty, I do see a difference in the way I look since we last met on here.  I can def see where the weight is coming of:  right around the middle.  My legs are also getting slimmer, but as my family so kindly pointed out to me, my legs are probably always going to be this size.  I'm inclined to agree, but my goal is to make/keep them shapely.  Just because these hips will never be a size 0 doesn't mean they can't rock the hell out of a size 9.

So yeah, I'm pretty pleased with how things are going thus far.  I'm keeping with the 5-6 small meals a day to keep myself from every being hungry.  Lunch has been a small piece of chicken or steak with a cup (microwaveable) of brown rice.  This week I'm subbing in the fruit that used to be part of lunch in for meal #2 at 10:30, which makes lunch a little bare.  But I put in grits for meal #4 (the pre-gym meal) so I have plenty of energy while I work out. Since i carpool with kid sister, I'm usually not able to get dinner in immediately following my workout, so I bring some OMG D'LICIOUS blueberry Oikos yogurt to eat while I wait for her to get off work.  Then I eat dinner, which is usually something small and drink some almost d'licious protein.  It's not a perfect diet, but it seems to be working.  I'm still planning on THROWING DOWN tomorrow for me and kid sister's "Pizza Thursday" celebrations.  It's not about deprivation, it's about moderation.  That plus the fact that I simply refuse to give up pizza.

Motivation

So recently I've decided to make some professional / life changes, which just so happen to require me drop down to 140 lbs.  Now I can't say for certain how much I weigh at the moment since the scale at my house gives me a different number every  time I hop on the damn thing, but I know for certain I'm not quite at that level.  Those of you who know me know I'm nowhere near almost overweight, so getting to this point won't require dropping suspect amounts of weight, but the weight must come off nonetheless.  For the first time in my life I have real.  live.  motivation (and not the Kelly Rowland kind).

I'm attempting to infuse the following into my routines:

• Burpees
• Jacobs Ladder
• Mountain climbers
• Treadmill (le sigh)
• Row machine

I've done all of these before.  Allow me to rank them in order by likability, with 1 being...well, #1:

1. Jacobs Ladder
2. Row machine
3. Burpees
4. Mountain climbers

     #891246265289641.  Treadmill

Yeah you read that number right.

I caaan't with stationary running.  I'm pretty confident I run greater distances outside than I do on the treadmill.  I'm going to have to trespass on some high schools to use their outdoor tracks (Reservoir, I'm looking at you).  Good thing I have 4 yrs of fence-hopping under my belt from SMCM.

Shout out to the ARC!

You know what I really miss?  Indoor tracks.  I got a little spoiled from my internship days in Fitchburg with that.  It's probably the greatest thing since the squat rack.  They really should become a "thing".

*SN*  It's becoming a common theme in my life for me to become moderately addicted to things that I can only have for a short amount of time or things that are hella expensive.  This fact somewhat diminishes my overall quality of life.

In any event, I'll keep ya'll in the know.  I have many moons before the weight needs to be gone, and by "many moons" I mean I'd like it to be gone by mid-July.

If for some ungodly reason I can't get it off the good ol' fashion way (hard work & dedication), I'll just stop eating.  Starvation is always a guaranteed way of meeting your weight loss goals...if you survive...

Date #2 with the Personal Trainer

Yesterday was Day 2 aka the last free session with my secretly African personal trainer.  It really is too bad I don't have $90/hr to spend on him otherwise I'd totally keep going.  He told me they're having a special...3 for $130.  I don't know about ya'll, but that ain't no sale to me.  It's bad enough this membership costs the same amount as my car insurance.  I can't even be giving away $130 on something I could Google and YouTube.

Last time I met with him he said we'd spent time talking about diet this session, which was a lie because he made no mention of such things this time around.  The session was still quality though; I think it lasted about 40 min or so.  I kinda gouped him out of like 10 min because he asked me what time we started and I said 6 when it was really 5:50, but he be aiight.

New Addition to the Routine

This time around we did a lot of cardio and core work.  He said those are the two things I should work on.  He recommends at least 45 min of cardio; I have to figure out how to work that in because I hate treadmill running, 45 min on the StairMaster is an awful lot, and I don't know that the bike would be able to hold my attention span for that long.  I'll probably go back to what I was doing at LifeTime:  15 min of elliptical, 15 min of bike, 15 min of running, or something to that effect.  I'm also going to add core work in with this, so now my week will probably look as follows:

• Monday:  Leg day
• Tuesday:  Cardio & core
• Wednesday: Todal body day
• Thursday:  Upper body
• Friday:  Cardio & core

Monday and Thursday are going to remain the same in terms of exercises I currently do.  Wednesday will be a mixture of both legs & upper body.  I'll probably do a bunch of exercises that require total body movements, ex) burpees and the like.  As for the cardio & core day, I'll do 15, core, 15, core, 15 core...or something like that - that does dd up to 45, right??  Man I wish I paid attention in math...  I'm gonna research different core exercises I can do between each set to keep my heart rate up.  You can get an core workout from more than crunches.  I'll let you guys know what I find.  As for the cardio bit, I know I'm keeping the StairMaster and I'll probably add the row machine and Jacob's Ladder to keep things interesting.  Treadmills and stationary bikes get boring after awhile.  You'll be too R.I.P. to be bored with Jacob's Ladder and StairMaster, and the row machine in right in front of the TVs so it just has good placement.

*SN*  The Jacob's Ladder struggle is real.  The 2:30 felt like 981246 minutes.  Now, this could have been because it was the end of the workout, I was already tired, and I spent 30 min on the StairMaster before the date even started.  But it was probably because it was just hard.

He Tried It

Anyways, here are a couple of funny things/complements the trainer dude said:

1. "You're shaped like a gymnast or an Olympic sprinter."
2. "You're stocky and short, which could be problems if you gain weight."
3. "You already have the muscle so if you do more cardio you'll be...OMG...yesss, so toned...OMG."

OK, first of all, #2 was not as it seems; he was trying to explain the importance of cardio to me, even though I secretly already knew.  Little harsh?  Yesss, but correct none-the-less.  This little 5'0" frame can only hold so much weight.  In fact, I'm so short that when he went to show me the Jacob's Ladder machine, the belt doesn't even go down that far.  Also, I've been called "stocky" my entire life, so that's really nothing new.  Anyway, I've never been compared to a sprinter or a gymnast, but I'll take it.  And that last comment...all I could do is laugh.  He said it just like that, French accent and all.

I'm gonna take his advice and go back to the cardio day(s) like when I was at LifeTime for the next 4 months or so.  He says I can yell at him if I don't see any results after that.  And I plan on holding him to that.

So we'll see how this new routine works out.  I'll start it on Monday and make adjustments accordingly.

Post Insanity Life (continued)

I haven't measured myself but I'm sure I'm smaller than I was in my Insanity days.  I'm sure that's because of the weight lifting.  My waistline is smaller and everything is more toned than before, which is odd because cardio is supposed to slim you down, thus toning you up.  This leads me to conclude that Insanity really only helped me improve my conditioning and not much else...which is fine since that is after all what I bought it for.  I just thought I'd share that piece with you.