Monthly Archives: August 2011

August 31, 2011

I’m Breaking Up With the Scale!

By Angie Bullock

First off, sorry for the long absence. Considering how new we are to the Austin area, I’ve been surprised at how many things we have to do! God is really plugging us in fast, and for that I’m grateful. Of course, it’s kept me away from my computer quite a bit, which isn’t all that bad either.

So, here I am. I have NOT been exercising, unfortunately.

I started off with a bang and then, nothing… my birthday weekend rolled around, we had a great time with friends and ate lots of yummy (but bad) food, and I just haven’t been able to get back into the exercise thing since. Oh, and my free Zumba class is over, so I’m totally bummed about that!

But, in the course of all this, I’ve figured out that I need to break up with the scale! And what I mean by that is, I need to stop playing the sodium game. Prior to SlimGenics, I had never worried about sodium intake at all. But they really opened my eyes to how sensitive my body was to it. Therein lies the problem. I have become obsessed with maintaining this insanely low sodium diet so I don’t retain water. But then, I can’t enjoy food at a restaurant – even in moderation – at all! Because when I do, all that sodium packs the weight back on.

Back up a week or so to my birthday weekend. I ate off plan on Saturday, but not a ton of food. Got on the scale Sunday morning (my actual birthday) and I was up 8.5 lbs! SERIOUSLY? In ONE DAY?!

It was then I realized that this sodium thing was out of control. The weight gain of 8.5 lbs was not real. It was water weight. That being said… that means that my weight loss on SlimGenics was not all real, either! And that also explains why I wasn’t comfortable with the way I looked at goal weight – because I really WASN’T at that weight. I was more like the professional athlete who sheds all his water to make weight before a game or fight. That’s not REALLY what he weighs, but it is when his body is retaining NO water.

So, I am stopping worrying about the sodium intake (well, I’m not going to go nuts, or anything, but I’m not going to worry about it). I figure I can eat healthy foods and get the weight down for REAL. The scale doesn’t need to tell me I’m healthy, my clothes size and the way my clothes fit do.

It’s a bit of a change. I haven’t been getting on the scale at all since then, so I haven’t been updating my ticker or anything. And I’m not going to. In fact, I should probably just remove it from my page altogether so it isn’t staring me in the face, inaccurate.

BUT, I do need to get back into exercise and find balance. I have a big problem with the whole balance thing – I feel like I’m either gaining weight or losing weight. But that’s a blog post for another day. Maybe tomorrow.

1 comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Dieting, Exercise, Slimgenics, Weight Loss

August 18, 2011

I THOUGHT I was a Morning Person…

By Angie Bullock
Farmers Union Iced Coffee

Image via Wikipedia

This week has been busy! So busy, in fact, that I’ve had to get up twice and go to the gym first thing in the morning. Not only that, but I’ve also had to set an alarm to make sure I was up early enough to go, get home, eat breakfast and get back out the door.

As it turns out, being a morning person only applies to my mental facilities, not my physical ones.

I spent both Tuesday and Wednesday mornings this week volunteering at the front desk of our new church here in Austin, Gateway Church. I work for our church in Minnesota, Eagle Brook Church, in the afternoons. We also had something on the calendar for both of these evenings, so really, if I was going to get to the gym at all on those days, it HAD to be first thing in the morning.

I can tell you, it really made a difference in my workouts, and not in a good way. I was far more sluggish and just didn’t feel like I had the energy to really push myself. On Tuesday, I had a Muscle Milk Light Cafe Latte on the way there. Packed with protein AND caffeine, I figured it would give me a little boost. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t, but either way, I was only able to complete 2 of my 3 circuits of strength training and 20 of 30 minutes on the elliptical.

Needless to say, when I woke up on Wednesday, I wasn’t all that jazzed up to go. But instead of the Muscle Milk, I drank a cup of iced coffee before going. That actually helped a bit, as I was able to get in my entire 45 minutes on the elliptical.

I was pretty happy this morning to wake up and NOT have to rush out the door to the gym first thing. I’ll do it if I have to, but I REALLY do not prefer it.

As for the scale this week, I’ve been pleased. So far, I’m down 1.4 lbs since Monday, leaving only 6.4 lbs to go until I’m back to my lowest SlimGenics weight. Of course, my birthday is this weekend and we have friends coming to stay with us, so back up I’ll go and start the cycle all over again!

2 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Exercise, Slimgenics, Weight Loss

August 13, 2011

I Made It!

By Angie Bullock

Well, I’ve made it through Week 1 of some serious, regular exercise. Of course, it wasn’t the full week that next week will be, but I did exercise outside the house 4 days this week – 3 times at the gym and one day of Zumba (need more Zumba!!).

I was thinking about my new routine and how it’s just something I have to do. I mean, not many people love getting up and going to work every day, but it’s something they have to do and they just get in the routine and do it, right? I’m blessed to not have that, so instead, the least I can do is spend an hour a day going to the gym! I just have to get myself fully entrenched in the routine where it’s just something I do.

The scale surprised me with a little reward this morning, as I was down 1.8 lbs from yesterday morning! Finally, the weight from last weekend is gone, plus .4 more, putting me only 8 lbs away from getting back to my SlimGenics goal weight. I’ve lost 7.6 lbs since Monday morning, putting me down .4 on the week when you remove what I gained over the weekend.

One thing I haven’t been doing and probably should, is taking measurements. I’ve just never felt confident in my ability to do them accurately (am I pulling tighter than last time, in the same place, etc.?), so I just don’t. But, now that I’m exercising, I feel that I will see more results in that arena than on the scale, so I think it’s important that I at least try to do them.

Well, time to go relax and tomorrow is a day of rest (yay!!). And guess what else is finally back? FOOTBALL!!! Vikings play tonight, but I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see the game when it’s rebroadcast on the NFL Network, since they don’t consider the Minnesota Vikings local down here in Texas.

Next up on the exercise calendar= Zumba class on Monday!

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August 12, 2011

Gym-Rat in the Making?

By Angie Bullock

Well, I probably wouldn’t go that far as to call myself that, but I will say that I’ve actually enjoyed my first week going to the gym.

Yesterday (Thursday) was my first day on my own and I did the entire full-body workout that the trainer gave me and a full 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer after that. I feel like I got a solid workout as far as burning calories (and I was down a full pound on the scale this morning, leaving only 1.4 pesky pounds remaining from last weekends gluttony-fest), but I honestly didn’t feel like I got as much out of the strength training as I could have.

I’m sure I’ll get there, but I only ran through a few reps on each machine with the trainer on Wednesday, so once I was on my own, I had a hard time remembering exactly where to put my arms on each machine, what to do with my elbows, etc. When I was done I felt a bit sore in my shoulders, which means I must not have been doing them exactly right (he said that the shoulders are the first place to carry stress, so we raise them unnecessarily when we workout upper body before we learn good form). The weight I was using also felt radically off (some too little, some too much), but that’s trial and error in the beginning anyway, so that will come with time.

What’s interesting is that today my biceps and triceps are the most sore, which is GOOD! Apparently I did better than I thought.

Today I went and just did cardio and I managed a full 45 minutes on the elliptical!! I couldn’t believe that I made it that far! Whew!! I was just dripping in sweat when I was done!!

Last night I really spent some time in prayer asking God for the strength and desire to do this and to stick with it. It’s easy to be motivated in the beginning, so I’m going to have to really pray and pray and pray regularly.

This morning I got some fun confirmation of God’s place alongside me in this journey. When I set this blog up here on WordPress last week, I used 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 as my verse regarding living intentionally on the Weight Loss tab, and this morning that exact verse was delivered to my Inbox as my verse of the day. A little answer to last night’s prayer!

For those who aren’t familiar with the verse and haven’t visited my Weight Loss tab on the blog, here it is again:

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (ESV): “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Exercise, Gluttony, Prayer, Weight Loss

August 10, 2011

I Tackled the Elliptical Trainer!

By Angie Bullock
Mid drive fluid motion quantum elliptical trai...

Image via Wikipedia

My appointment with the personal trainer at Fitness19 was this morning. I thought it went really well, but the true test will be doing those exercises, in the future, without him there to guide me and correct my form. If we had extra money just laying around asking to be spent, I would absolutely buy some sessions, but it’s just not to be right now, so what I got is better than nothing, right?

We started out talking about my goals and then he developed a plan of action for me. A full body workout (strength training) that should take no more than a 1/2 hour (3 full circuits with 15 reps on each machine), then another 1/2 hour of cardio, 3x a week, never on back-to-back days. On the off days, just do cardio.

I’m going to shoot for cardio only days on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (Zumba=cardio!) and the full body workouts on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Sundays I will rest.

For when I do cardio at the gym, he gave me the option of doing either the treadmill or the elliptical trainer. The stationary bike was not an option, because he said you should never do cardio sitting down; it should really only be used for rehabbing. I don’t really enjoy it anyway, so no big deal. The treadmill has always been my cardio machine of choice, but the elliptical, ugh. I just look at it and hurt.

He says if I don’t want to do it, no big deal, as the treadmill is very effective. But he likes the elliptical because it’s basically NO impact – it doesn’t get much better for working your heart and lungs without stressing your body than that. So, of course, I want to give it another try. I think the last time I got on one was probably 1998 and I literally didn’t make it 5 minutes before I thought I would just collapse.

He explained that because there is no impact and you just glide, most people get on it and go WAY too fast and then they can’t go very far. He said I shouldn’t be going any faster on it than on the treadmill. So, I got on and did 3 minutes at about 3.5 mph. My thighs were burning. They do NOT burn after 3 minutes on the treadmill. He said it’s because the treadmill is obviously using the same muscles you use all day long, whereas the motion of the elliptical uses different muscles. Ok, so that sounds to me like it will be more effective. Let’s give it a shot. We finished up our session and I went back and did 15 more minutes on it!! I know that may not sound like a lot, but for me it was and I felt victorious!

So tomorrow I plan to start my full body workout. He took me through a few reps on each machine, just to show me proper form, etc. Tomorrow will be 15 reps on each machine for the 3 full circuits and then the 30 minutes of cardio.

Think I’ll be back here tomorrow shedding tears?

Oh, and I was down another 2.2 lbs this morning, so now I’m only up 3 lbs from last Friday.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Exercise

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