Day#7: One Week Down!

One week down and I still went to the gym! Yup, still doing that if you were wondering ;)

7 Days Down, 53 Days till Disney World

So today marks one week since I decided to do this work out thing. My wallet cried and so did I, but sticking it out one week is major for me. I can't recall a single workout-type activity that i've ever done for that long and not decided to quite at the end of it. So, no white flags of surrender here they've been banished to the far corner to think about what they've done!

Working out today felt... fine. I wasn't stressed out by being in the gym and I mostly stopped wondering if people were watching me and laughing... this still is hard to overcome because the way the gym is set up, the weights and strength equipment is on the lower level, where the cardio equipment sit atop this viewing deck hovering over our heads. I'm sure they enjoyed watching me perfect my "marching" and my sweet moves on the "step"

step on, step off... step on step off... it's a wild ride! ;)

Earlier today I attended a 3.5 hour meeting where the company basically set out to establish what the point of our biz is... it was long and there were parts of it that hey, I admit I'm skeptical about. But over all it gave me hope that maybe work can get better than it has been. I'm crossing my fingers and keeping on keeping on!

But we all did get some sweet swag from the meeting. Check it, posing post work out... (Because sweaty me is way more attractive than non-sweaty me!)





One other cool thing being that I helped design the Tags that are on this pack.



If I were to purchase one of our sweet new browning bags, it wouldn't be this particular one, but Hey! (shrug) This one was free and it's still pretty awesome... Check it out here if you want to see more about my bag.

Anyway... following the meeting the company announced a few cool things, like that our dress code was being abolished... yup, I foresee a future at my job where I see far too much leg and hairy legs... and flipflops. Also, they announced that the way the company is doing vacation time is changing, which is great. Now it'll be structured so that I can take time off as long as I ensure that my work is getting done. (Which I never fail to do because I'm awesome!!!) This will make Disney World that much sweeter!

Lastly, I feel inclined to pat myself on the back... because ColdStone was offered to the entire company, and I resisted the urge to eat it. (I don't know why being good feels so crummy... oh yes I do, Ice Cream is awesome, and I love food.... Dang it!!! )

---

Shout out to everyone who's been supportive or who has said I've inspired them to work out *blush* That's super sweet! Way to go all of you! May the will-power be with you.

Day#6: Last Meal

Happy Sunday! - a day of rest :) ahhhhh...

6 Days Down, 54 Days till Disney World.

So, no workout today. So I thought I'd share one of my favorite favorite foods with you all! Adapted by my mother from my Aunt Julie's family's recipe.

It's become the thing that I claim I would eat for my very last meal if ever I were on death row... Which I would probably land there for something I did while deliriously "Hangry"... I just know it!

Cabbage/Carrot Chicken Ramen Salad! (my aunts family call their version of it "Jimmy Salad", because my cousin Jimmy just older than me also loves this salad. And really, who could blame him? Seriously, I could eat myself sick with this stuff - and I have because i'm OBSESSED!





You can "SEE" the obsession... it's in those crazy eyes!

Today I made a whole huge batch of it to eat this week; because not only is it delicious it's also very healthy (sans the ramen... Looks away with shifty eyes...) Here's the Recipe (How my mom did it):

---

***Cabbage/Carrot Chicken Ramen Salad:***



6 Cups of Carrots - Peeled/Shredded
6 Cups of Cabbage - Shredded (about 1 full medium sized head)
1 Cup Green onion - Chopped
3 Medium Radishes - Small Diced (I usually omit these since I'm not a huge fan, and plus dicing them is a pain.)
7 Cups Chicken - Boiled/Cubed
1.5 Cups Lemon Juice
3 Pkgs. of Chicken Raman (I like the crunchy raman bits, and would say 6 pkgs normally, but since I'm trying to be "healthier" it's just 3 here, but you can add as much or as little as you like.)
1 Cup Slivered Almonds
Garlic Powder - to taste
Salt & Peper - to taste

Directions: On the stove cook the chicken (with bit of salt) (I use tenders because they cook faster (about 10 Tenders about right, I like mine with extra chicken) till done. Remove and let rest. Cube chicken and place in a separate bowl. Smash Raman Packets till broken to small pieces, open packages and remove spice pouches; add them and a dash of garlic powder to chicken. Add Lemon Juice to chicken and toss till seasoning is well incorporated and set in fridge to marinate.  Next Combine: Cabbage, Carrots, radishes and Green onion in a large bowl. Add Chicken/Lemon mixture into the Cabbage/Carrot bowl and mix. Add extra lemon juice or water if desired. Finally, before serving add crushed Ramen and Slivered Almonds to the salad, these add a crunch.

Serves 14-20 (approximately 1.5 Cups a person) 220 Calories a serving.



(shown here without the radish)

---

I love this salad! Like obsessively! Hope you enjoy. Happy Sunday - Tomorrow's Leap Day; I knew a girl way back in elementary school who was born on leap day, and she was technically only like 3 when I knew her; or something like that. Go Figure! I guess she'll actually be able to claim to be way younger than she is and it wouldn't be a lie... how would that go over on a date I wonder?

Guy: So how old are you?
Girl: Oh, I'm 7.
Guy: Come again?
Girl: (Blankly stares at him with a serious expression.)
Guy: ...
Girl: (Continues to stare him down)
Guy: ... Okay...

Haha! That'd be a blast. Man she's lucky! Tomorrow's leap day, so Happy Birthday to that girl, who I don't remember your name... I hope it's a great 7th Birthday for ya!

Day#5: Even on Saturday!?!

This weekend my sister came to visit, but I still went to the gym! Yup even on a Saturday.

5 Days Down, 55 More days till DisneyWorld! Yay!

I did a lot of walking today! YUP-AROONIES! Woke up this morning and had crapes for brunch (how very posh), and then we went to Costco (and walked), where I then bought a bag of tasty pears. It's been forever since I had a pear. Delicious!

Scarfed one down after working out.



So I learned something at the gym today, not only can I do hard things, and even do those hard work out things all on my own... but if I do those hard things on Saturday I can do them in a nearly empty gym! Yup... there was virtually nobody in the gym today when I went. Looks like people have better things to do on Saturdays than work out. Go Figure! ;)

I may be working out more on Saturdays but because there are less peeps crowded in the gym. On top of the sparse patrons in the gym, it was also a good work out day for other reasons. I did a full hour work out. Half an hour of strength training, and then a half an hour on the treadmill for cardio. I did it and it wasn't painful, but challenging. Yay, perhaps I'm past the initial muscle shock... (I better knock on wood, knowing my trainer Kendra, she'll put me through something harder next week.)

After the gym I walked some more through several furniture stores with my sister Melisa. She just bout a house and is thinking about decor so we went window shopping. (more walking!) Tons of fun. I love hanging out with my family. They're the best (yup, even better than your family, I know it's hard to believe... okay, I'm biased but... I'm allowed)

Again, thanks for the support everyone! I'm going to go eat another pear! :)

Day#4: and....Pause

Today was a needed rest day. :) after working out Thursday with my trainer, and discovering some new aches and throbs from my week of working out, she let me know, that I should push myself past what I can handle. :D

4 days down, 56 more till Disney World!

In the absence of working out today I have little to report on except how my new battle with the carb counter app is going. Not good!!! Kendra asked me to start recording everything I'm eating on this app; named "my fitness pal" but let me tell you, we are not friends... No sir-red bob! Definitely not pals! That guys always harping on me, telling me that my pickles are too salty and my oranges to sugary, that guy won't let up...!

But record my every nibble I must. So today I ate a low carb breakfast and then a low carb lunch (with steamed brustle sprouts, yum!) and by dinner I had a pleathera of remaining allotted carbs to consume, so dang it, I'm having Pizza!!! - with a little convincing of my sister Melisa. (What a bad influence she is ;) ) we went and had some thin crust pizza. It was tasty.

Still counted calories, still fighting the good fight. And tomorrow I do the gym again once my muscles have a short rest...Yay Excercise...!

Anyone have some good quick breakfast ideas? It's the meal I'm struggling with the most and my trainer and others have said skipping it is a bad idea. So if knowledge is power, I need some more ideas. I usually do something like string cheese and an apple. Something I can grab and then eat once I sit at my desk at work. Thoughts?

Also, does walking around and window shopping count as some kind of cardio? ;) Because that's an excercise I can get into, you know competitively. I'd win that gold medle for most products oggled for sure!!! lol

Day#3: Skinned Elbows and Jello Legs

So Apparently when you don't use muscles in like forever they don't like being told to start working! Yeah... So Sooooo sore today.

3 Days Down, 56 Till the most magical place in the world ;) - Disney World!

So today was my second session with Kendra my Trainer. Golly I'm glad I decided to get a trainer. My trip to the gym yesterday was much more intimidating than having someone there to cheer me on and offer guidance and helpful tips. Like, Hey! If that hurts your knees, adjust your stance like this to work around it. :D so great!

Today we did a whole new workout! Learned some dumbell exercises and did a bunch of jogging in place. (wipes brow... more like continues to squeegee my sweat dripping face like a car window in the rain... never seeming to curb the downpour of moisture.... okay, that sounds like I'm this nasty dripping mess of a person... okay, that's true!) ;) I'm going to blame genetics on that one!

** Reminder to self, bring a towel** - Unless that's tacky or gross... I don't know! What's proper gym edict??? I don't want to be that gross person who leaves a river of sweat in my wake. :(

After our session which was GREAT! YAY! I did 20 minutes of cardio on the tredmill to finish up my hour of workout time. Being so stiff and tender during the day, It felt good to get muscles moving. Can it really be true that the best way to deal with the muscle fatigue of working out is to to keep working out? (shakes head vigorously) Nah! - Still not buying that... yet. ;)

Since we did new strength training today we didn't do the plank! YAY! I was dreading having to do that. But Kendra taught me a different core targeting exercise where you balance on the edge of a big rubber ball (I swear I'm going to pop that thing!!!) and then you do these karate chop moves with your arms as you balance. teetering on the edge of sliding off the ball and falling on your butt! But it burns, So I assume that's the point.

Really the planks didn't like me, I'm sure that I'll do them again, (pesky planks, like a bad fish smell lingering everywhere) but seriously they didn't like me, or more specifically the "plushy" mats aren't so plushy... or maybe it's that I'm so "plushy" but I've skinned my elbows up from planking too aggressively ;)

Want to know how I got these scars? lol!



The photo doesn't do them justice... they're way worse than that. ;) Spurting blood, Impairing my ability to walk, and even disgusting passersby!

But Ironically, after a tough day at work... my workout was the most satisfying thing I did today! Go me! Now all I have to do is figure out how to get my legs to stop shaking.

Thanks for all the support peeps! It means a ton having people cheering me on and supporting me. And for your amusement, I present a doodle of me at the gym!

Day#2: All by Myself!

So, Here it is, my first day by myself armed with what my trainer taught me yesterday... okay... okay (trying not to hyperventilate). OKAY! This is the part of the story where I admit that I sat in my car for a few minutes before walking into the gym just repeating "I can do this..." to myself.

2 Days Down, 57 Days till DisneyWorld!

"You could do some cardio tomorrow as well..." suggested my trainer Kendra at the end of our previous session -  so sweet and innocent, like those cartoons where their eyes inflate and they look so adorable and cute; not at all threatening or dangerous. Such things should be outlawed - It's just not natural and super tricky on her part!

So Cardio I did! Here's how that went... not awesome!

So Yesterday left me sore. I didn't know that doing that would leave me sore, but it did :( but being the idiotic over-achiever I am, I was going to do what Kendra told me to do. So I made a workout sandwich: Strength training, then cardio, then ending with strength training again.

Yesterday I could plank for 20 seconds, today it was short whimper-filled 5 second bursts. So I did enough 5 second bursts to make my required 20 seconds. Ouch! Following that I did the remainder of my sets minus the leg press because this one guy was on the machine the entire time. Lame!!!

Anyway, next was the cardio filling of my workout sandwich - Here I am, over achiever, picking the stair stepping thing! out of the entire room filled with perfectly respectable stationary bikes and treadmills I decide to do the stair thing! (shakes head sadly).

That was... well not as easy as I thought it would be. It taught me just how Kendra feels, many machines aren't equipped to allow for shorter people, well Cardio machine Hand-Hold-Spots are not equipped for tall people, Hunching to hold on was not a pleasant experience, but not holding on would have caused me to fall - mmmm decisions decisions. I chose not to fall.

Then finally ending with strength training again and finally the leg press! I can't say I feel like I know what I'm doing. But I went, I did it. That's something at least! Tomorrow another day with Kendra, Hope she's not disappointed with my feeble planking!

On the plus side, if my scale is to be believed, I've lost a half a pound! (I think that it must be wrong, people don't loose weight that fast! ;) )

In case you were wondering... No it's not a rash, I'm not blushing, it's just my face after doing more physical activity than I've done in a long long time...

Just to give you context... me before with my stylish bow, and me after... Red Hulk!



I'm still trying to decide if I want to walk to the gym, it's not far... see!



Just 3.1 miles. But considering how I've pushed myself today I think it's smart to wait on that particular added torture!

Day 1: "I have muscles there?"

1 day down... 58 days till DisneyWorld!

So, First impressions of this whole gym thing:

Kendra is the name of my Trainer, she's tiny, not only thin but short, I spent the entire meeting looking down at her standing at 5'5 unless I was seated (I never have felt more like Gwap from Harry Potter in my entire life... (there's a first time for everything I suppose!) Despite her unfortunate genetic lottery outcome, she's peppy and eager to get me excited. Which is nice but weird to, because at this point I don't know anything at all about her and having a complete stranger believe in me loosing weight and feeling better is a strange concept to me.

The hour for training had come and I had psyched myself up all day at work. Dreading it... today was initial weigh-in and measuring... and my personal body image has never been a bright one, more like dingy gray. However... I didn't cry which is a major win for me. Take that Gym-stigma! HA!

Once the measurements were taken and my body fat% calculated we walked out into the sea of fitness equipment and padded workout mats. Totally out of my element here... People working out all around me, and me trying to decide if anyone was looking at me in my tight 2X tee shirt, which was the only clean tee I had... Yikes... nobody says anything, as Kendra said, everyone in the gym are concerned with how they look and what their doing... If someone was looking I hope they enjoyed the show... Because, oh ho ho... it was probably some kind of theater.

So... We approach the weight and metal jungle. (have never set foot in a gym I may remind you). Kendra walks me through a couple exercises: Planking, KettleBell and yes, my high school nightmare... the pushup. (pause now to cry for me, I really hate pushups! Like the kind of hate you reserve for only the lowest parts of outer darkness - that kind of hate)

Okay... the pushups weren't too bad, Kendra, as I said is super peppy!

Then a few machines later I start to discover burning, yup... There are muscles in my body I've never attempted to bring to life, to call into action, nope, never considered it, and frankly because they don't and haven't ever been called on before, they complained. like me getting up early on a Saturday kind of complaining. Feeling the Burn!

It's day one, and I didn't do the full hour that I'll be doing tomorrow. Yay! I hope I can do this... Praying I can do this... At least it's not like I'm training to run a marathon or anything, because those peeps are CAT LADY CRAZY!



One day down. I guess I'll just have to see how this thing goes, but I'm committed... at least I'm pretty sure I am!

The Epiphany Shoes

A sad fact of this blog is this... I've not posted for literally a year and five days. This I've come to grips with, such is life, it will probably happen again. Crazy as my life has been in this past year following my mother's death, I've come to accept that's how it goes.

Here's a the story that got me to think "Huh, I should write this down and share it with the void". It goes like this:

There are a few things that I've been pretty sure of for a long time, peanut butter is disgusting, Harry Potter is awesome, and I'd probably never step foot in a gym. My perception of the later of these things has changed just hours ago.

But I wouldn't have ever gone in a gym if it weren't for the fact that I'd been offered by my Aunt to step foot, neigh frolic in a completely different place, a magical place full of food, rides, and Magic! Yup, Disney World. Ahhhh! My childish enthusiasm gushing, and delight surging though my atrophied leg muscles declared "YES!"

Silly foolhardy childish me, for you see, last year I had the chance to go to Disney Land with this same Aunt and her adorable family; and on that trip I did enjoy myself, but if my feet could have said that same thing; I'm sure that I would have indeed been frolicking out the door instead of limping.

Here's the rub, I'm not skinny. I never have been, and frankly have held very low standards as to achieving significant weight loss. Following my mother's well-meaning diet escapades, to which I was subjected to for the duration of my preteen through my teen years. I did not come out skinnier or even mildly interested in subjecting myself to any more diets for the rest of my life.

There's definitely resentment there, sorry mom!

This being said, I have tried other diets and those have also failed, mostly because I'd hit a point where I'd feel completely hopeless and then resort to the thing that always made me both happier and subsequently depressed... that's right. Food!

So, how does this have anything to do with the title of my post? Well, upon deciding that I was going to Disney World, and that this time I would not limp from the gilded gates of Disney Glory, I decided my first corse of action would be to purchase a pair of really good shoes and proceed to brake them in over the corse of the next two months until "D"-Day!

So, since trying new things seems to be a trend with me lately I skipped on down, or rather walked over to a running shoe store and explained my dilemma to the nice man behind the counter, who just happened to be the manager. He was very nice, (I think they're paid to be) and fit me with shoes, I mean the whole shebang: measured my feet, watched me walk (awkward!), and then found me some really great shoes. Indeed the best shoes that I've ever owned.

Behold the shoe glory!



So. Now equipped with awesome shoes I proceeded onto the next part of the plan, braking them in. This is where the story comes full circle. That was a week ago to the day - and while wearing my awesome shoes at work today I had the thought that I really will have to commit to walking a lot to make this happen - From what I've read online people walk an average of 8-14 miles a day in Disney World. I didn't think I could do that in the cold inversion-laden air of North Salt Lake. So, a gym must be found where I could use a treadmill to do my walking prep.

So I decided, that If i didn't just do it I never would... and that was the Epiphany. I rarely do anything without feeling obligated or that I'm getting something from it that I really want. like that wonderful paycheck ;) Yay for adulthood.

So, starting tomorrow I'll be heading to the gym to meet with a trainer to which i've committed a whole year to train with. YIKES! Two months to Disney World and then nine more after that to see if this crazy thing will work for me.

Here's hoping! I'm a perfectionist, and something else that I know about myself is that I always make things harder on myself than they need to be. Now I'm off to clean my kitchen where i'll cook my lean chicken dinner! Yay...  :P