August 26th- 5 years

Yesterday marked the 5-year anniversary from the day my dad died.

I still feel incredible sadness over him not being around.
I still find the day difficult to get through.
I still think about him and think of the hospital and everything that went down.
I still don't understand what happened (and know that I likely never will).
I still take a great amount of comfort in knowing other people are thinking of him and missing him too.
I still feel so fortunate for the amazing network of friends and family who help makes days like August 26th so much easier to get through.
I still ate (just two spoonfuls of) ice cream to celebrate my father.
I still miss him.
I still wish he was here.

I wrote about it in my journal. I talked about it a little bit with friends. I exchanged a bunch of emails with family. I got a ton of support from people on Facebook acknowledging the day.

And yet, I still went to bed sad.

I love you Dad.

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Blah Blah Blah

So much going on right now. All of it making me weepy. All of it leaving me feeling emotionally drained. Most of it good stuff. Some of it sad stuff.

Today my mom had her regular mammogram. The days and hours leading up to her mammo are anxiety filled as we all wonder what will happen. Of course our minds drift to the worst case scenario, hoping we will never have to relive that experience. But something that has always stuck in my mind after my mom's initial diagnosis continues to haunt me, and her, and makes it difficult to not go to dark places in my mind. Years after she had been diagnosed, my mom said "Once your body betrays you like that, it's never the same." She continued to explain that every pain you feel your mind automatically thinks it's cancer. Is every cold a precursor for something much worse? She had pain in her back once and was convinced that her cancer had moved into her bones. I hate that she has to life with that kind of fright everytime something might be wrong with her. It makes me incredibly sad.

But I'm happy to report that today's mammo came back clean. An email popped into my inbox with the words "Everything's A-OK" in the subject and a huge sigh of relief could be heard around the world. My mom, sisters and I exchanged a few emails back and forth expressing how happy and relieved we were and there may have been mention of my mom getting the biggest glass of white zinfandel she could get her hands on. Her very quick response, "Don't worry- I will."

On Wednesday it'll be five years since my father passed away. Today it hit me and before I knew what was happening, tears were sliding down my face. At one point I glanced at Katie's Facebook status and saw: Katie Corridan knows "Life is not the way it's supposed to be. It's the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes a difference." We must count ourselves the lucky ones, for we were with you in your prime. We found that quote among my dad's belongings after he passed away. And we all knew that this quote must have guided him through the last months of his life. It brought us all a lot of comfort and, in fact, we put it on the program to his memorial service.

People say, myself included, that time makes it easier to deal with the death of someone you love. I've always felt, for the most part, that with time you just get used to that person not being around. The pain dulls. The bad memories fade. The sadness doesn't hurt quite as much as before. But what I have also found is that the heaviness in your heart, or the shortness of your breath you get when you think of the people that will never get to meet the loved one you have lost or the experiences you'll never be able to share never ever goes away. And that's a feeling I wish would get better with time- like the rest of 'em.

My sister Kara sent adorable pictures of my nieces from their latest vacation to the shore. For the first time in recent pictures, Lila came alive. Her adorable personality shining through, finally giving Julia a run for her money. I couldn't help but think how impossibly sad it makes me feel that my dad will never get to know them. As a father he was often times grumpy, overworked and annoyed. He craved his alone time since he worked like a dog. But I could picture him being a fun loving grandfather. Someone who would have a lot of fun with his grandchildren. If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can see him and Julia giving each other a hard time and Lila staring him down. I can picture him taking them out for ice cream and getting a kick out of how much they love it.

I know that grief comes and goes in waves. And I know I can do nothing else other than to embrace it, deal with it, talk about it, write about it and let myself BE.

Be.

A very dear co-worker of mine, this wonderful woman who I have learned so much from, sent a thank you letter for donating to her 3-Day walk. A walk she did for her sister, who passed away 48 hours after the walk concluded. At the end of the letter she said that her sister would be continuing her good work out of sight. And I found tremendous comfort in this thought. That the people we love continue doing what they do, it's just out of sight.

Wednesday I leave for Denver to participate as a Crew member in the 3-Day and this makes me happy. I know it will be emotional, challenging, tiring and fun. I know the days will be long with early starts. I will probably be cranky sometimes. I will definitely get dirty. Yet at the end of the four days I'll be on event, I know that something inside of me will change. How can it not? Watching women who are currently going through treatment walk 60 miles over the course of three days. Seeing endless pictures of the people we all walk for- some still around, some not. Getting to see children, husbands, friends and other family line the streets and cheer on their loved ones walking. You really do get to see humanity at its best and I'm ready for a big fat does of that. It's what makes the 3-Day so magical.

And I just need to remember that being sad, angry, happy, anxious, whatEVER is fine. This time of year is always a challenge. I just need to be.

Be.

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Hooray for Rita & Will

Steve and I went up to San Francisco this weekend to attend the wedding of my dear friend (Dirty) Rita. We met 10 years ago working at a coffeeshop, Tully's, in San Francisco and have remained friends ever since.

Her wedding was so much fun- simple, beautiful and personal. And Dirty Rita (a nickname I gave her from our days working together at Tully's) was not so dirty!



Congratulations Rita & Will!

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Making Me Mum Proud

I have faded memories of being a child and sitting alone at the dinner table.** In a family of six, this was definitely a rare occurrence. However, when you're given one string bean and refuse to eat just that, and you're stubborn, and so is your mother, then you end up all alone at the dinner table until someone budges.

Tonight my mom would be so proud of me. No one made me eat it, but I not so silently suffered through a slimy, soggy helping of spinach with tonight's dinner- shrimp and sweet potatoes. Katie can attest to the fact that I did not enjoy this one bit, and a couple of times we both feared I might have gotten sick right at the table, but I ate every bit of spinach on my plate. Luckily the accompanying food made it a little easier to swallow, but there has to be a better way to do spinach. If not, there definitely is a better way for me to get my four handfuls of veggies in each day.

Earlier in the day I died just a little bit after another killer workout with Britt. She proudly told me that she works me harder than any of her other clients. Which makes me feel good. But should also give you an idea of how hard our workouts can get.

Today we did:
1 minute of squats (focused on keeping my body low to the ground)-

(How funny is this picture?)

1 minute of band waltz's


hamstring curls- 10 single leg on each side, 10 both legs, 15 super quick short reps, followed by 5 super slow reps


I did three sets of these and in between the first two sets, I did elliptical sprints. 1 minute sprint, 30 second rest, 45 second sprint, 30 second rest, 30 second sprint, 30 second rest. I got my HR up to 171. Which means I was breathing like a fool-


After successfully killing my legs, we moved to the arms where I did:
Chest press (with 40 f'n lbs) right into a bent row. But the killer is that I had to do 10 reps of each, then 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, all the way down to 2 reps and then back up to 10 reps of each and only then was I done with those two exercises. I had to try very hard to not have any breaks between all of these reps-




We ended with a "shoulder sequence" (I think that's what Britt called it) where I used only 3 lb weights but had to do somewhere between 100 - 120 reps of a variety of shoulder exercises. By the time I was done, it hurt just to have my arms hanging from my body.

Tomorrow I get in the car and drive north to San Francisco. Hopefully I can move by the time we arrive!

**This faded childhood memory will probably turn out to be a myth, something I made up, but for the sake of this story, it's staying in here.

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Week 1 Results- Game On Diet

I'm really really really happy to say that week one of The Game On Diet has been a smashing success! I got a perfect score of 850 points and lost 5lbs. I'm really proud of myself and really happy that I was able to complete week 1 so well.

There are so many things I like about this plan:
1. built-in support among teammate(s) and even the opponents
2. trying new foods- egg whites and soy milk are two things I had never really tried before this. Also, I just had a salad yesterday with brown rice in it...It's much better than I ever would have thought!
3. more energy- all the water, working out and good food is definitely giving me MORE energy.
4. better mood- I'm sure it's the combination of everything, but my moods are definitely better. I'm happier and I just FEEL better.
5. changing habits- although I still wonder about stupid lame ass celebrity gossip, I know that my life is much, much better without it. And I look forward to, 21 more days from now, when I possibly won't give a shit about it at all! I've also been writing in my journal everday (including my day off) and that makes me happy. It's also really nice to open up my journal and not see "I can't believe how long it's been since I last wrote in here" written at the beginning of every single entry. That was getting old for the past five years.
6. it's working! It's really nice to see that my body is actually responding to all of this. It's even nicer to see it all reflected on the scale. I know it's only week one, and that typically in the first week of any weight-loss effort you see a big loss the first week, but still. I'm taking it and running with it.

The four of us combined have lost 24.5 lbs in the first week alone. Amazing. I think all of us have struggled for a while to find something that has worked. I know I have tried many times and many programs for losing weight. But I really love this approach. It's one thing to sabotage yourself, but to know that you're going to mess up your teammate and allow your opponents to get ahead and closer to the grand prize...well...it makes you think twice for sure!

The grand prize is $300 for the individual with the most amount of points. The team with the most points gets $100. And the person who loses the most weight each week gets $20. We've come up with a way that everyone gets rewarded. I didn't win the weight loss challenge for this week, but I'm okay with that. It means that someone else lost more than 5lbs in their first week, which is amazing!

As I move into the end of the week, I do have my first real challenge since joining- a weekend away from the house. A weekend away from my own fridge. A weekend of temptations! But I've decided to take Friday PM as my meal off. And then Saturday as my day off. So I am fairly certain that I can manage this. I'm also going to take up a little cooler and keep snacks on hand to make sure that on the drive up and on the drive back I have what I need to stay in the game and kick some ass!

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I Do Not Have a Case of the Mondays

Not surprisingly, today's workout with Britt was another great one. I mean, they all are. But here's what we did:

Split Squat Lunges- 3 sets of 10. It's amazing how I can actually do these without having to take a break. The first time I tried to do these, I really couldn't. Still not my favorite exercise, but great to see the progress.


Hamstring Curls- 3 sets of 10. Until the end, when Britt got evil. She dropped the weight 5 or 10lbs at a time and made me do this 10 times. So I probably added on at least another 40-50 reps. Ouch! Of course I secretly love it.


Bench Step-Ups- no weights this time. Just had to haul myself up onto a workout bench do a little hop switch legs and come back down on the other side of the bench. It was haaaard. And I was doing this right behind Bill Rancic. Always fun.


Overhead Press- 3 sets of 10.


Elbow Ups (definitely not the real name for this exercise)- 3 sets of 10. Hard exercise for me to do.


Lateral Raises- 3 sets of 10. Super hard, especially after doing the other two exercises right before it.


Ab Extensions on Bench- 3 sets of 15. Very hard. But feels very good.


Overhead Tricep Extension- 3 sets of 10.


Seated Squat Row with Rope- 3 sets of 10.


Assisted Tricep Dips- 3 sets of 15. This was really hard. I liked having the assistance of the machine, but it's a really hard exercise to do. I normally do it on the bench, both, I believe, are equally as challenging.


Plank- hold for 2 minutes! I almost did this for a full two minutes. About 1 minute and 15 seconds in, I came down for about 4 seconds, quickly moved the towel out from underneath me (which was causing me to slide a bit) and then got back up to finish the last 45 seconds. Grueling, but great.


While I was running around, grunting and sweating like a maniac playing Wii Tennis (that shit is hard!) on Saturday PM, Britt sent me a text to say she got me the best present ever. I love presents. So when I arrived to the gym today, she let me know that because of a fitness competition she won, she was turning over a free nutrition consultation to me! It's with a group called The Paradigm Project and I really don't know that much about it...yet! It's just amazing that Britt would be willing to gift that to me and I'm excited to learn more about whatever it is they have to teach me.

The Game is still going great. I'm having a fun time. Yesterday was my day off and I didn't go crazy, but enjoyed some off program food- carne asada and Indian food. But I'm still off diet coke and alcohol. Haven't had either since the program started. And despite the fact that it's allowed on your off days, I've stayed away.

At the end of the week Steve and I head up to San Francisco for a wedding and then the week after I head to Denver for the 3-Day. The wedding should be manageable and I'm determined to not lose any points and make the program work for me. But I'm nervous about Denver when so much of my time will not be my own. At the same time, however, I'm excited and anxious to have something that does keep me "in check" so that I can continue to work on healthy habits.

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Mourning the loss of Condiments- Especially Ketchup

I'm nearing the end of day three of the Game On Diet and it continues to go well. I finally went grocery shopping, so I was able to expand my horizons a bit and add some variety to my meals. Which is going to be a huge help.

My dinner was really lame though. I had a chicken breast, roasted potatoes and what felt like an entire plate of artichoke hearts. It was pretty bland. I usually allow all of that food (except the hearts) to play with ketchup. I looove ketchup. I've had people point to the shirt that says "I put ketchup on my ketchup" and want to get it for me. I have politely declined as I don't need everyone in the world to know about my love for ketchup. But tonight, as I swallowed down my lonely roasted potatoes and really missed my ketchup.

In the grand scheme of things, I'm totally okay with it as I know I'm working on creating such healthy habits. And I know ketchup isn't really all that good for you. But still. I'm pouting over the loss of ketchup. And I probably will be for a little while.

I'm realizing more and more why doing the Game on Diet as a competition is one of the most important aspects to making this work and helping you stick with it. You may have a desire to stray, but you don't want to bring down the other people on your team and you don't want to give an advantage to the other team to win.

So far I'm doing great and it will continue that way, but it isn't totally easy at all.

I worked out with Britt today, and as always, she kicked my ass. Here's what we did together:

walking lunge - 3 sets of 30! My lunges are improving. I'm focusing on not leaning forward, not putting too much weight on my front foot and I actually felt better doing them. To reward me for that hard work, I almost did a walking lunge right into Chad Lowe! Katie ran into him (not like me, she basically got busted checking him out) and between the two of us, we need to work up the nerve to tell him he worked with our uncle and basically knows us.


Right after the lunges I had to do a wall squat with the exercise ball. And hold it for 45 SECONDS. My legs were en fuego.


shoulder flys on incline bench- 3 sets of 15, which led into 3 sets of 10 where instead of bringing the dumbells as pictured below, I had to raise them way up above my head. It hurt.


flat bench leg lifts- 3 sets of 15. The last two of each set ended up with me doing this scissor movement with my legs to get the lower ab area.


inverted row- 3 sets of 10. Which is really one of the hardest exercises I have to do. Because I'm pulling my own weight UP to the bar. Which is absolutely no fun at all.


back thingy- i'm not sure what the name of this exercise is (Britt if you're reading, will you comment and tell me please?) but you work your back. I did 3 sets of 15, which I was told would be easy, but it wasn't.


To make up for it being "easy" I did this gnarly exercise where I had to lay face down on a massage table that is used for stretching people out after the personal training sessions- but only the upper half of my body. I grab hold of the sides of the table and then have to lift my legs up BACKWARDS. Besides being insanely awkward, it was also very difficult to do. But I did 3 sets of 10. And since I have no clue what this exercise is called, I can't tell you or get a picture of it.

hamstring curl- 3 sets of 15


mountain runners- 3 sets for 30 seconds. I'm not a huge fan of this exercise.


bosu ball plank- hold for 45 seconds as my last exercise. Hard as hell but feels really good.


So that's my day. I'm beat. It's not even 9pm and I'm pretty sure I could fall asleep in a matter of minutes!

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Day 2

All I need to do is write in my journal and then I'm done for the day. And I've earned another perfect score for the day.

I absolutely positively need to make the time tomorrow to go to the store and get some real freaking food. Today has been a bit of a struggle only because I don't have a lot of variety in the house. And I'd prefer to not be eating the same things everyday. Not that I am, but I think key to this being successful is planning. So the commitment I'm making to myself is to sit down and plan out my meals and to go grocery shopping.

Tonight I had my "free meal" which consisted of paneer makhani, an amazing creamy cheesy tomato-y Indian dish with some rice and garlic naan. It was delicious. Although you can have alcohol and soda during your free meal, I did skip both (diet coke being harder to resist) and stuck to water.

That's it from here. I'm boring. And really tired.

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It's So On

It's 10pm, I'm exhausted. I've just had a house guest and another friend from New Hampshire visiting. After dropping them off at the airport, I raced home so I could get in my 20 minutes of exercise in so I wouldn't lose my points.

Today was Day 1 of the Game On Diet and it was amazing and fun. It was especially challenging because three of my meals were at a restaurant. So not how I wanted to start this off, uphill battle and all, but my hands were tied to an extent. Which really just means I need to clearly work better at saying no more. Blah blah blah, I know.

But it wasn't that bad. At breakfast I ate egg whites for the first time in my life. And was happily surprised to realize they didn't totally suck. I also had a side of fruit and 1/2 a piece of whole wheat bread- dry of course. Topped this all off with a green tea. My poor unsuspecting friend thought I was "so LA" with the green tea, so I'm sure he thought I was a goner when I got egg whites. Little did he know, I was just trying to kick ass and win some dough.

Lunch was also out, but I ordered a salad at Baja Fresh and managed to only get the grilled chicken and romaine. Saying "no thank you" to the cheese and tortilla strips was slightly painful, but I get it here. I'm working on becoming a much healthier person. So I instead opted for balsamic vinaigrette and mango salsa on the side.

Dinner was sushi, where I had tuna and yellowtail sashimi. And opted to use my 100 free calories on freaking soy sauce. What is this world coming to that I use those precious calories for soy sauce!? Whatever, it was worth it.

I'm looking forward to getting at least seven hours of sleep tonight. I'm hoping Clancy will stop being an ahole and let me sleep. He's been getting in the habit of pestering me with constant whining in the morning alerting me to the fact that he would like to eat. Immediately. And it's really irritating. Plus I'm crabby cause I'm not sleeping well. Enough of the complaints already, Molly.

I managed to not look on any gossip sites today. So I've successfully dropped my bad habit at the end of day one, and it feels good to be able to say that. I caught myself many a time at the ready typing in one of the many lame ass loser sites I would check out. And I just shook my head and smiled and though, "I have many many better things I can be doing with this time."

Now that I've crammed my mandatory workout into the day, I'm taking Mr. Clancy Corridan-Fast for a quick walk around the block and I am getting in bed with my journal so I can add those 10 points to my scorecard for the day and successfully implement my new habit during day one.

Great start!

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Damn You Stupid F'n Orange Chicken

I live right next door to a Panda Express. And every now and again the orange chicken calls my name. I hear it. It beckons me over. And within 10 minutes I have an order of double orange chicken and some other crappy sides and the world's largest diet coke that I'm dropping into my body. And then within 10 minutes after that, I almost always feel like crap. Weird. I wonder why. BECAUSE IT IS CRAP. But it tastes soooo good sometimes.

That's what happened this afternoon. Less than three hours before my session with Britt, I walked over to Panda (it was calling my name, I had no choice), loaded up on crap, finished working and then went to get my ass kicked.

And holy crap, did I get it kicked HARD. Today's workout really winded me. My heart rate was consistently high. In fact, it reached over 180 at a few different points during the workout- 183 to be exact. Which I proudly told Britt, hoping it was a good excuse to slow down. But no, that did not work. My average HR was 153. Gone are the days when I look down sadly at my heart rate monitor wondering if the thing is even working. It's working. And so is my heart apparently.

More than a few times throughout the workout, when I was struggling and wanting to give up, I just kept repeating "damn you stupid f'n orange chicken" and powered through. If I felt it was necessary to trash my body with that crappy food, I sure as hell was going to work even harder during my workout and that's exactly what I did.

Here was the kick-ass workout I did despite the shit sitting in my belly (and sometimes right at the back of my throat):

Set 1-
lateral bench step-ups with 10 lbs weights in each hand- when I powered myself up to the top of the bench, I had to lift my knee up. This was really difficult, but I managed to work through three sets of 15.

So imagine that image above, but with weights and a knee lift to top if off.

low to high cable wood chops


ankle band walk- as many as I could do in a minute (my butt was burning!)


ab exercise- you get in the push up position on an exercise bench. instead of doing push-ups though, you take your left hand and come down onto the arm (as if you were going into plank) and do the same with the right arm. then you come back up onto your hands one at a time. do this rep 10 times on each side.

Set 2-

lateral shuffles into medicine ball high to low twist thingys- shuffle down, do 10 twist thingys, shuffle back, do 10 twist thingys, shuffle down, do 5 twist thingys, shuffle back, do 5 twist thingys, shuffle down, shuffle back.

barbell curl into overhead press



single leg/arm balances


knee touches (or something like that) on the bosu ball
10 with the knee moving towards your head
5 with the knee moving across your body toward the opposite shoulder
5 with the knee going out (like you're a frog or something)

I could only find one picture. Note the bosu ball is upside down and I not only have to do this difficult ab exercise, but I have to balance too!

By the time I was done with the workout, I had to lay on the ground for a good minute or so to just try and catch my breath. Britt told me it was a great workout and that on top of it being a lot of weight, it was also an endurance day.

As an aside, while I was warming up, E! was on one of the TVs and I was watching one of the gossip shows and saw Guiliana Rancic on the TV. I look straight ahead and see Guiliana Rancic in the gym, about 30 feet in front of me working out on a some machine. When I went to meet up with Britt, I saw Guiliana waiting patiently while her husband Bill Rancic got a chair massage outside an exercise room.

Anyway...tomorrow starts the Game On Diet. I'm nervous and anxious and really looking forward to the amazing change this is going to kick start.

For my old habit I'm going to drop for the next 28 days, I'm eliminating all online gossip websites. No People, Perez Hilton, Just Jared, TV Guide.com, E! Online, Entertainment Weekly, no TV show spoilers...nothing! I've deleted all these sites from my saved bookmarks and made my last sweep through them tonight. Why I give a shit about any of this celebrity crap is beyond me. I guess it's a nice distraction from everyday life. And sometimes it's interesting. Although this is, sadly, going to be a challenge for me, I'm excited to get that much of my life back and focus that time and energy on being productive and thinking about myself, my family and my friends.

The new habit I'm introducing is to write in my journal at least once a day. I started a journal the first day of my senior year of high school and have filled most of 15 journals since then. I've been working on my 16th one for several years at this point. I have always loved writing. I have always loved having a journal. Although, at times, reading back through my journal has been a body cringing experience, I'm grateful to have these memories from times I barely remember. As my sister Kara once said about her own diary entries, I've disassociated myself with this lovable loser who posted about crazy things that mattered back when I was a senior in high school. But I also recognize that lovable loser who wrote cringe worthy things, is part of who I am today. And I need to be okay with that. (I'm working on being kinder to myself, can you tell?) So yes, I'm writing in my journal every day and I'm looking forward to it.

I'll write more about the Game On tomorrow. For now I need to get my sleep on.

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The Game on Diet

Yesterday Britt weighed and measured me and it was a good (harsh) reminder that my lack of discipline with my nutrition the past few weeks is NOT helping me out in the long run.

While I did have some inches lost (hips and waist- not to be confused with the belly button area, where I did not lose anything!), it wasn't the amazing experience of a month ago when I lost just over 8". I can, and certainly have, beat myself up over everything I've done wrong in the past month. But instead, I'm moving forward. Making changes. Working towards overall health. One. Small. Change. At. A. Time. And most certainly, one meal at a time.

To kick-start this whole thing back up again, I've decided to take on this fun challenge. I heard about a book called The Game on Diet. It's written by the head writer of Grey's Anatomy (one of my favorite shows) and seemed interesting enough. I first checked out the website and then was intrigued enough that I purchased the book.

Then I decided to rope a few other people into getting the book and now have a small but mighty team of four ready to play the game beginning Wednesday. Here's the deal.

The game is played for four consecutive weeks. A perfect day is worth 100 points. A perfect day includes:

30 meal points- 6 points per meal for eating five fully sanctioned meals. No snacks between meals.

20 exercise points- earned by doing some form of exercise for 20 minutes per day. (I can't imagine a day when I would only do 20 minutes of exercise, but it's nice to know in order to get the points I ONLY have to do 20 minutes. And, how great, that only 20 minutes doesn't seem like much of a workout for me anymore?).

10 water points- must drink 3 liters of water each day.

15 sleep points- must sleep for a minimum of seven hours a night!

20 transformation points- 10 points for practicing one healthy new habit and another 10 points for eliminating an unhealthy old habit.

5 communication points- must be in touch with at least one teammate and one opponent each day.

Exceptions- each week we get one meal off and one day off a week. Day off is a day off from allll rules. But the point is not to make up for lost time and eat all the calories you would have liked to consume. Rather, the idea is that you're being a little less strict with yourself and giving your metabolism some time to boost up a bit so you don't hit a plateau.

Bonus Points- earned for:
turning in scores on time (10 pts)
losing 1% of your body weight (20% of your points)

Penalties- points taken away for:
snacking (10 pts)
collusion (making someone else do something bad so you can justify doing something bad yourself. or just being a plain asshole is really what that means) (20 pts)
alcohol- per portion (25 pts). Also, if during any week of play someone doesn't earn their weight-loss/fitness bonus, that person loses the provilege of alcohol on the day off for the rest of the game!

We're given a scoring sheet and at the end of the week, we turn it in, add it up and see which team is winning.

I just finished reading the book today and besides finding it to be really funny (I loved the main author, Krista's, writing style- she's very sarcastic and smart assy- my style!), it touched on SO many of the things I've learned over the years while trying desperately to work on my weight.

It's too late to go into all of it, but I'll with the promise that I'll post some of that helpful/funny information throughout the upcoming week. And to give you a tiny update that I have the next two days to get my "game face on" which also means filling my food full of the "sanctioned food" and getting the unsanctioned food out of my house!

I'm really excited and plan on updating you a lot on how the game goes!

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All About the Legs

Because yesterday was all about the arms, today was all about the legs. And by the end of the workout, I thought I might boot. But I didn't.

Here's what we did.

Set 1- 4x
Squats (first with 40 lbs, then 75 lbs, then 85 lbs! Last time through that set, Britt had me do as many as I could until I couldn't go anymore. I did 30 squats with 85lbs during my last time through that set!)


Quick step-ups- for this I had a little step stool basically that I had to jump up with one leg, then switch my legs and come back down on the opposite leg. Did this 20 times.

Hamstring roll on the exercise ball


Set 2
Step-ups with dumbbells


Resistance band waltz- for this one I had my body and the resistance band in the same exact position as the picture below, but I had to lift up my legs, take a big step to the side and stomp my foot down. I had to do this quickly, about 20 reps total and it was burning my thighs and ass.


Set 3- doing as many of each of the following exercises as I could in a minute. I ran through this set only two times and on the second time, I didn't have to do the lunges.
Bench Squats



Lunges (one of my least favorite exercises, mainly because I'm not actually good at them)


Plank


Honestly, by the end of the 2nd plank, which I tried desperately to hold for a full minute (but stopped for a brief break about 45 seconds in), I thought I was going to get sick. I hadn't eaten anything before our workout and it was a really hard one.

But of course, by the end, it felt really great and I was so happy to have gotten another workout in for the week.

I'm getting back in the groove.

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An Eight Day Break- Oopsies

Before today I hadn't worked out in eight days! Definitely my longest stretch of not working out since I started this whole thing waaaaay back in the middle of May.

Why did I stop? Lots of reasons. All of them interesting. None of them important.

Today Britt kicked me right back into shape with an all upper body workout. Tomorrow morning I go back in for my all lower body workout. That should be interesting.

First set consisted of:
overhead chest press with 25lbs dumbbells.


bent row, also with 25lb dumbbells.


russian twists- instead of a ball, i used a dumbbell for the added weight/resistance.


I went through this set four times.

My second set consisted of more arm fun!

I worked my shoulders and chest on this next machine by facing away from the machine and then the second exercise I had to sit facing the machine. Doing it the unnatural way, with my front facing the machine was really hard. I had a difficult time making it all the way through the set, but did...barely.



After this mini set I took 10lb weights and did a front raise right into a side raise.



Then led me straight into the overhead raise.


And almost without a single break, I finished this set with bench dips.


Now the killer to this last set is that I started with doing 10 reps and then went down one rep until I only had one rep in the set to do. So I went through this rotation front raise into side raise, into overhead raise and ending with bench dips for 10 reps, then 9 reps, then 8 reps...until I only had one rep. It was such a bitch.

Because Britt was really trying to run me into the ground, she made me try this pull-up machine.

I really really did try to do this. But after working my arms for almost an entire hour, I went to do one of these and ended up almost pulling my arms out of their socket. Very little sarcasm being used to describe just how much I couldn't do this exercise.

So instead we ended with one of my favorite exercises the woodchop exercise to work my core/obliques.


Even though I've been off for over a week, it felt great to be back at the gym, and even better to be working my body so hard.

Back in the game. Watch out!

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