Arm Workouts Starting Next Week

Okay. Officially 4 months until the wedding. I brought my 8 lb. weights to my apartment, so starting next week I'm going to do arm workouts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings before work. I'm hoping that I can slim down the overall circumference of my upper arms at least a little bit in the next few months. And maybe get a little stronger! ;) My goal should be obtainable if I can keep up with the workouts. Oh, by the way, Zumba is still SO fun and I wish it was more often than just Thursdays!

Eating Everything

I'm having an eat everything I see night. We had an early dinner, then I got hungry again and ate about 40% of a pint of ice cream. Then I had a slice of pepperjack cheese. This is not good. It's only 9:45pm. There are so many more minutes that I can spend eating before I go to bed.

Frustrated

I'm feeling frustrated about my attempted weight loss. Things seem to be going in the wrong direction this week and it is making my motivation level decrease.

2/03/10: +4.7
2/10/10: +4.6
2/11/10: +3.8
2/14/10: +3.3
2/16/10: +4.5
2/18/10: +5.0

Gahhh... :/

Halfway Point Goals

Wednesday, March 31st will be the halfway point between starting this wedding fitness and the wedding itself. I think I should set some goals for that date. Let's take a look at the goals and promises I set for myself in January:

Goals:
- Go to the gym at least once a week This is going well!
- Make healthy diet choices, including portion size This still needs work.
- Lose approximately 7-8 pounds We'll see!

Promises:
- I will not snack out of a bag or box. This isn't going well. I ate a bunch of oyster crackers out of the bag as a snack just yesterday.
- I will eat more salad. I'm eating a bit more salad than I was, but I could do better.
- When we have frozen pizza, I will only eat 3 slices. I've kept this up the whole time! We have pizza once a week and I always stop after 3 slices.
- I will eat dessert on weekends only. This is not really happening. I need to kick my addiction to sugar!

Okay, so I'm not following my goals and promises as well as I had hoped I would. I need to work harder to keep these in mind every day. As for a weight goal, I want to be only +3 lbs. over my goal by the halfway point at the end of March. Right now I am +4.5 over, and I started at +7.2 (adjusted for no shoes). I think I can accomplish this if I can stay on track with my goals!

Arms

The wedding is quickly approaching and I need to start thinking about my arms. Right now they're kind of just big, wiggly flab logs. I have some 8 lb. weights... somewhere... so I should probably find those. Maybe I can use my newly-free Wednesday mornings to concentrate on toning my arms.

Yay Zumba!

I went to Zumba in place of dance class last night and it was so much fun! I had a smile on my face the whole time. And it was a great workout. I was so sweaty by the end! I'm really excited that this fitness class fits into my schedule now. :) I still need to figure out some sort of exercise routine for Wednesday mornings though.

No More Yoga

So, it looks like Wednesday morning yoga at the gym has been canceled. I don't know why, but it is gone from the online schedule. There aren't any other gym classes Wednesday morning, and I can't fit any of the other yoga classes into my schedule. :(
I need to figure out some sort of exercise to do on Wednesday mornings. I'll be jogging at the gym on Tuesdays and doing Zumba on Thursdays and I like to switch things up. Any suggestions for Wednesday morning exercise?

Yoga?

So, our yoga instructor didn't show up this morning. The people working at the gym tried to call her but she didn't answer. I hope everything is okay with her. We ended up sitting around in the yoga room for about 15 minutes and then one of the other people in the class said she would run through some poses and we could follow her if we wanted. So she basically led the class this morning, and she turned out to be really good! It was a shortened class, but it still felt really good. Anyway, I heard a rumor from one of the other people in the class that the instructor had said that she didn't want to teach the class any more. I really hope they find a substitute teacher if this is true, because I will be sad if the Wednesday morning yoga classes are canceled. :/

Oh, and I'm +4.6 this morning. I'm hoping to see some change after a couple weeks of going to the gym instead of dance class.

Dance Dropped

Okay, I dropped the modern dance class. But it looks like there is a Zumba class at the gym on Thursday evenings that I can go to in place of dance! On Tuesdays I will either run on the track or I'll go to one of the cardio classes that are offered in the evening at the gym. I feel good about this decision. I WILL go to the gym on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, even if I am tired. And even if it is all snowy or rainy out.

Dance Class

I really haven't been enjoying my dance class lately. It seems to be getting more and more pointless and I don't feel like I'm getting enough exercise. We spend most of our time rolling around on the floor. And the instructor is driving me crazy! She's really condescending. It's a beginning dance class, so I feel like she should explain things nicely instead of getting mad or sarcastic when people don't understand what she's trying to say. Anyway, I'm thinking I will drop the class, but that will mean that I will need to make a firm commitment to go to the gym in its place on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. With the dance class, I have a course grade dependent on my attendance. It will be challenging to make myself go to the gym in the evening if I don't have the grade motivation. I know that today I was so tired at the end of work and I would not have wanted to go to the gym. But I went to dance because I had to be there. Okay, I can do this. And hey, maybe jogging at the gym twice a week will be a good way to get past the weight plateau.

Weight Update

I've hit a plateau with the weight loss. Here's how it's been going so far:

(I adjusted the days that I wore shoes when I weighed myself so that all of the weights below are without shoes.)

1/04/10: +7.2
1/05/10: +6.2
1/06/10: +5.4
1/07/10: +5.2
1/11/10: +4.4
1/12/10: +4.6
1/20/10: +4.8
1/27/10: +4.1
2/03/10: +4.7

I need a push to get past this plateau. I don't really have any time in my weekly schedule to add any more regular exercise, so I guess I need to eat less.

Yoga and Weigh-in

Yoga was good this morning. We did this crazy thing at the end where we made our bodies into inverted L-shapes with our hands on the ground and our feet against the wall. The instructor helped me get up into the position and then slowly pulled her support away. It was really hard, but exhilarating to do. Yoga really puts me in a good place for the rest of the day, and even for the rest of the week. I could totally see myself getting addicted to it.
After yoga I did my weekly weigh-in. It was a little disappointing because I am +4.7 over my goal and last week I was +4.1 over. Oh well. :/

Low Energy

I was kind of annoyed with my modern dance class tonight. I had a pretty low level of energy all day leading up to the class, so I wasn't really in the mood for moving around a lot. In addition to that, we spent most of the class "learning to fall" and rolling around across the gross dirty dance floor. It just wasn't very much fun today.

On a more positive note, today is my half-birthday and I am going to have a cheeseburger and fries for dinner. I've been feeling oddly un-hungry all day. So far today I had a ham and cheese croissant, a chai latte, a sandwich bag full of stick pretzels. Maybe the small amount of food explains my low energy all day.