This week my challenge is about maintaining my fitness and diet goals while on vacation.  I'm on day 7 and so far so good.  Every day I've burned between 500 and 1000 calories doing the elliptical machine and Les Mills Pump and Burn workout.

My secret for staying entertained on the elliptical machine is to watch a tv series on my iPad while I'm working out.  When I am home, I do things other than the elliptical like an at home Spinervals class or and Insanity Asylum workout for my cardio, and I mix in the elliptical too.  But while away I am at the mercy of the gym facility - this particular one has a great elliptical machine.  I started watching Damages, and am hooked - and the great news is that each episode is between 45-55 minutes so I am motivated to stay on the machine for the full time.  Then I do Pump afterwards.  I'm loving Pump, by the way.

Les Mills Pump - Day 13

I'm totally psyched to be doing Pump. It's a nice change of pace and I love love the barbells. I've also been doing a lot more cardio. Today I did :60 minutes of cardio on the elliptical machine while watching Damages, which by the way I am already enjoying a lot.

After the cardio I did Pump and Burn and know its going to be a great remaining 77 days of this program. I burned over 1000 calories today! Yay me.

I've also been really watching my carbs, ever since my valentines day madness where I apparently ate enough sugar in chocolate and Necco hearts to throw my adrenals and thyroid out of whack. Really??? So since a few days later, let's say I've been diligent about eating 55 net grams of carbs or less a day. It's working!! Starting to feel in control, and better, and have lost at least 5 pounds. My doctor, Tania Dempsy, is right - this really is the way I need to eat regularly.

Day 30. I did it!

I'm totally psyched.  I completed the 30 days and am feeling great.  In the 30 days I saw tremendous progress.  I've lost five pounds and a total of 5.5 inches from all over my body.  In addition to that, the fitness test really showed results and big differences from day 1 to day 30:


Exercise: day1/day30
Agility Heisman                            6.5/7.5
In & Out AB Progression              18/28
Push-Ups                                       15/22
Mountain Climber Switch Kicks   45/80
Agility Shoulder Taps                    3/4
X Jumps                                         26/35
Moving Push-ups                           3/3.5
Agility Lateral Shuffle                   10/13.5
Agility Bear Crawl                         2/5

Day 19 - Game Day plus Overtime.

Overtime???  Really?!  Was that absolutely necessary?  Today's workout was hard and the lactic acid and burn in my legs took me to my absolute limit.  An hour and fifteen minutes of intense cardio and strength training.  The result?  Two people mentioned today that I look fit.  I feel it too.  My weight is staying down, or starting to drop even further, my eating is under control, and I am in the zone.  Today I am absolutely starving, so I am going to try and stay within reasonable limits of food, eating a little bit more since I burned so much more. My total calories burned for today workout was 975 calories, which is almost my entire days worth of calorie intake.  I can't believe there are only 11 days to go and I can say I did Asylum, and 11 days to go and I can sit my skinnier arse on a beach for a week. :)

Day 16 - Starting to countdown

Today's the first day the number of days to completion are starting to go down.  16 completed, 14 to go.  Today was verticle plyo and it's still very very hard - at least the warm-up/jump rope piece of it.  Jump roping was intended for the very well coordinated!  The good news for today is that I weighed myself and I'm back down to where I was before I went away last weekend, down a total of 1.6 pounds since I started 2 weeks ago.  I took my measurements today too, and I am down 2 1/4" in total.  My left arm seems to have grown a bit, but the rest of me either stayed the same or reduced.  The biggest reductions are in my thighs - each one is down 3/4".  It's all that jump rope lactic acid burn that is doing that!  I feel them tight and strong too.  Go me!

Yesterday Maria and I decided we would share our food logs with each other daily to make ourselves accountable to lose those last 5-7 pounds.  Seems like just one day of it worked for both of us, and the scale proved it for me this morning.  Weekends are tough, but I'm going to stick to my 29 give or take weight watchers points.  I am committed to losing those last few pounds.

Still going, almost half way there

The biggest challenge of Asylum for me seems to be the warm-ups. Jump roping and jumping jacks are no joke. My legs are literally burning in the first five minutes of each day and I'm thinking i want to quit. But that ends and the rest of the workout is manageable challenge. Today was back to core again, and muscles burned throughout the workout, but in a good good way.

As for diet yesterday, i stayed on track within the weight watchers limitations. I was actually quite surprised how many "points" I ate given I really held back on the nuts throughout the day. I can't even imagine how many points I normally consume in any given day. So, this morning I was down 1.6 pounds from yesterday. Point 4 to get back to where I was on Friday.

Day 11 - Game Day and more than 1/3 done

I'm totally psyched after today's workout.  The workout was called Game Day, and it was 60 minutes long.  Just it's name and duration scared me, and I was really intimidated by it.   I was totally psyched as I watched the clock fly by, felt my blood pumping, and got into the workout.  I did it!  Of course there were some things I couldn't do, or had to drop to the floor on even though Shawn T was screaming at me to keep going, but I pushed myself beyond what I would have thought were my limits and I'm feeling great.  I haven't taken any measurements yet, but I feel like things are tightening up.

We went away this weekend and while on Friday I was down a total of .8 pounds, today I was up for a total of 2 pounds up.  I was bummed, but I'm 100% sure it had to do with the too many very salty pistachios and the beef jerky I ate due to not eating enough and being on the road.  I feel confident I can get those two pounds shed today and get back on track.  I really do want to lose 5 pounds in total by the end of my 30 days, so I now have 20 days to do it, well... 20 days now to lose 7.    I know I can do it, starting right NOW.  My commitment to myself is to eat 5 meals a day - meals to include protein and vegetables, and to limit the amount I eat to within the weight watchers point system allocated to me.  I have to give up the nuts, or limit them at least.  I eat WAY too many.  Here I go...