1/3 of the way done with Power 90 :)

Even though today was a very long and stressful day I am so excited I have finished 1/3 of the 90 day program! I can actually see a little difference in one of my before and after pics! I am stoked to see how big of a difference from day one it will be when I'm at day 60 and 90!

So today I had all three girls to babysit and my own, so it was a very busy day. I found out that my little 8 month old daughter is 28" long and 16 lbs 7 oz! I also found out that is why she has been so cranky, apparently she is growing like a weed and is most likely going to be tall. Unlike me, I'm 5'1". Her dad took her to get her 2nd flu shot and get her measurements. She's getting so big, I'm just glad she's long and skinny! The other little girls were pretty fun today, we had a tickle fest this afternoon and played with some play doh and colored a lot. I need to come up with some more easy craft ideas for us to do.

After I was done babysitting for the day I got ready and went to zumba and came home sweaty and lobster red. I felt a little bit less coordinated than last time, my brain doesn't keep up with my feet the entire time. I'm still trying to get the steps down so I totally don't pay attention to the hand movements, but I'll get it in the next couple classes I'm sure. I'm always glad to get out of the house and see people. I left with plans to get coffee with a friend, so thats always a plus. Then to my husband's surprise I came home and went right down stairs to do my Power 90 circuit (strength) workout. Since I was a little tired from zumba I lightened my weight for most of the exercises to 10 lbs instead of the 15 lbs. I still did well and made it through the whole thing.

Well I can't wait, cause in about two weeks I'm going to move up to the phase 3/4 of the Power 90 dvds which is a little harder I think. I'm very excited. I'm also going to try to make it to zumba every Tuesday and Thursday, and do P90X cardio of some kind on the other circuit days. I want to get this weight off for good. I also plan on doing the P90X when I'm done with the 90 days of  Power 90!

Here are some pics. The first are my before and after from day 1 to today day 30. The side pic from day 30 looks funny because my belt had to be tightened and the tail end of it is sticking out LOL. The third picture is my new favorite Shakeology Recipe "Mocha Chiller" Its one scoop of Chocolate Shakeology and 1 cup chilled coffee. Or I add a little coconut milk (about a 1/4 of a cup coconut milk to 3/4 cup coffee)




You can really see a difference in this picture! At least I think so! Its really motivating!


Yum, the perfect breakfast! Coffee with Shakeology!

Monday was rest day!

I didn't get a chance to write last night, but I have some time to catch up this morning. Yesterday was not a good day. Instead of just having a cheat meal I had sort of a cheat day. I had normal pancakes for breakfast (no syrup, I used agave instead) I had the scrambled eggs with cheese I made for the girls and my brother. Then at lunch I had two quesadillas with salsa (I did use the Ezekiel tortillas) and dinner was clean. We had lean beef tacos on whole grain tortillas. I also had a small bowl of cheerios as a snack before bed time. I know for sure now that if I have my cheat meal for breakfast I'll crave junk food all day. So I'll just have to keep that in mind for next time. I'm not worried about it throwing me off track at all, cause it was one day, and today is a new day :)

I didn't have a workout yesterday since its my rest day, but I was wanting so badly to workout all day long. At least I can workout tonight. I'm going to the Zumba class tonight and I need to do my strength workout  today sometime too. I have to take my 30 day progress pics today too. I don't think you can see a huge difference yet, but I know that I feel great. I'll post the progress pics tonight with my blog for today.

Something I've learned is that coffee is not bad for you, its the stuff you add to it that can sabotage your weight loss and healthier lifestyle. I've started drinking my coffee black, which I swore I could never do before. I like it now. Adding sugar, milk, or even artificial sugar adds a lot of calories and screws with your hormones. Stevia isn't as bad, but the other artificial sweeteners can still spike your blood sugar or cause you to store more fat.

I'll catch up more with you guys this evening.

Done with day 28 of Power 90

I have been so exhausted all day today! I even napped a little when my daughter did today, which I haven't done in awhile. I think my body was trying to recover from the massive amount of exercise I did yesterday! On a good note, I lost another pound. So at a 10.5 lb loss I'm at 228.0 lbs now! I'm so glad the number is going down! I'm really hoping to be at 208 lbs by the end of this program and have lost 10 lbs each 30 days. I know I can do it.

Today was very uneventful. I took my brother to my parents to do some shoveling for them and hung out with my overtired 8 month old who didn't want anyone but mom for almost 4 hours. It was a very long 4 hours. Then we went to subway on the way home cause it was almost dinner time and I picked up a 6 inch sandwich. I was really good though, I only had them put only one piece of cheese on it, got wheat bread, and didn't add any mayo, only mustard. Of course it had almost all the veggies too! I love subway but its really hard for me not to walk out with a drink and chips in my hand, I made it out with just the sandwich this time!

After I got home and put my daughter to bed I had to force myself to workout! I just didn't have the energy to do it today for some reason. I did make it downstairs and did the workout and now I feel a lot better, its just a really off day for some reason! Word to the wise if you are out of shape and over weight like I am don't do power 90, p90x and snowshoeing in the same day LOL. You'll feel like you ran a marathon the next day. I'm glad I have my rest day tomorrow.

I don't want to turn this blog into a sales pitch, but if you are ever interested in doing any of the beach body programs I highly recommend them. I just recently became a beach body coach because I love the programs I've been trying so much an want to share it with others. So if you are interested in the workout dvds or Shakeology here are my websites. I just want others to have success too!

www.beachbodycoach.com/laurakilian

www.myshakeology.com/laurakilian

Power 90 day 27 done, and lots more...

I weighed in again this morning, and saw that I had lost another half a pound! I was so happy! So now I'm down 9.5 lbs! Everyone keeps saying that they can see a big difference in my face, but I'm still trying to figure out if I see a difference or not. I know I feel stronger, which is amazing.

The local Healthier You competition I joined was doing a snowshoeing event today at 11am, but I had totally forgotten to pick up some snowshoes from our college gym, so I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to go, so this morning around 6:30 I decided to do P90X cardio X (46 min) and I did pretty good, there were only a couple things I couldn't do, but after my workout I saw that my music teacher from junior high had replied to me and said I could borrow her snow shoes! So I made sure Olivia was ready to go and woke her up so we wouldn't be late. Put her in my back pack I got for Christmas that almost fits properly now that I've lost weight (the belt around my waste snaps, but its way too tight still) and took off with a bunch of other people who are doing the Healthier You also. 

I'm the largest person that I at least noticed was there, and I'm packing around a baby! I didn't know how to put the snow shoes on right so one fell off a little ways in, and a couple really really nice ladies helped me fix both of them, then I was off! I just kept going at a good pace and didn't want to stop cause it was like 15 degrees or around that outside and I knew my 8 month old baby wasn't used to the cold, but she didn't complain at all. We made it the whole loop going up the side that didn't have the super steep incline and coming down the side that did. But the time I got back to my car my face was dripping with sweat, and my shirt was soaked under my jacket, and my hair was a nasty wet sweaty mess under my hat! I felt great! I loved it. I definitely want to go again, but going with my daughter I can't go by myself cause I can't get the pack on without help. I need to talk my husband into going.

I just now did the power 90 strength workout and since my muscles were a little tired I didn't do as many reps as I normally can, but I still did between 8 and 15 reps like you're supposed to.

I love the way working out makes me feel. I feel like I can do almost anything :) I know that I'm going to get to my goal weight of 160! Because I am actually enjoying the work that I have to put in to get there.

Here are a couple pics of my daughter and I snowshoeing. I had to post both of them cause even though my eyes are closed in one of them I love the expression she is making! She was so excited to go!

Day 26 done!

I can't believe that I'm already 26 days into doing this program!! I weighed in this morning and had lost another pound, so I'm down 9 lbs now!  Its amazing that I'm so much better at the workouts than in the beginning and its just going by so quickly! I did the cardio today and pushed through the entire workout without any modifications because I knew I could do it from the last time when our renter was talking to me :) The feeling of accomplishment I've had is giving me a serious endorphin high! I love it!

This evening was my great great Aunt's 90th birthday party, so I went to that at 6pm with my brother and my husband stayed home with our daughter (who was in bed). I am so glad I had already eaten dinner cause they had tons of catered food, and waiters bringing around more food, and of course cake, so I just stuck to two cups of black coffee, one shrimp, and a couple celery sticks LOL. I knew I was going to go home, workout and have to have a snack afterwards so I was so good. I wasn't even tempted by anything. Yay I've made it long enough eating clean that its turned into habit and isn't as hard anymore. Sugary or bad foods no longer look as good. Even a week or two ago I would have eaten everything! So that just goes to show that you can form good healthy habits, it just takes a little time!

All right its almost 10 pm here and way past my bedtime since my daughter wakes up at 5 or 6am! So I had to make tonight's entry short!

Here are a couple pics, one of me, me and my brother Randall, and my favorite brand of bread :) I love Ezekiel bread, its clean and packed full of good carbs! I wish our small town carried more of the varieties, but I use it for sandwiches, wraps, and just use the bread as a bun for turkey burgers! Its delicious!

Day 25 of power 90...

I got in another early morning workout today! I wanted to cross the circuit workout off my calendar so I could go try out Zumba tonight. My friend gave me a 10 class punch card for Christmas and I just now got to go! It was so fun! Intense but fun, and for being to most over weight person in the class I have to say I wasn't that bad. I did really well. I didn't know the steps, but I was able to keep up for the most part and did a whole lot better than I thought I would. I'm going to keep going once or twice a week to add a little bit of variety and extra cardio on the days I do my circuit (strength) workout. This morning when I was doing my circuit workout I moved up to 15 lb weights for about 3/4 of the workouts. I am glad I did, it was the perfect weight to give me a little bit of a challenge but still get about 12 of the 8 to 15 reps in! Have I ever mentioned I HATE dips! They are awful and I have to use my four wheeler for support cause we don't have a sturdy chair in the garage. I'm trying to find one.

I'm so proud of myself for working out and sticking to something. In my family I'm known as the "lazy" one! When everyone else was outside gardening, doing work in the yard, or just being out in the sun, I would be on the couch or in my room either watching TV, on the phone, or reading a book. I'm still like that to a point but I'm trying to train myself to be better than the couch potato I used to be. I really want our daughter to grow up with an active family! I want to be a good role model for her. Sure during the day or evenings I'm still going to watch my shows LOL, but I want to make sure even on the days its raining or snowing or 10 degrees outside that I'm still being active! I also know I have it in me to be a strong athletic person, so I'm just trying to become that better version of myself :)

So I did really well on the clean eating today, I had Shakeology for breakfast which was delicious, an breakfast burrito with egg whites, spinach, salsa and a few feta crumbles on an ezekiel wrap for an after workout snack, a salad for lunch with tuna and avacado, then quinoa, chicken and  broccoli for dinner, and for my after zumba snack I had ezekiel bread toast with PB2 and apple sauce that I made a couple days ago! I'll post some pics for you!

A tip that I've learned is to have water with you all the time. We keep a brita pitcher and a few water bottles full in the fridge all the time so we are always drinking ice cold water. Invest in 2 or three good water bottles, and take one with you everywhere. Hunger is often mistaken for thirst, so drink up!



My breakfast "burrito"



My salad for lunch today with tuna and avacado!

Day 24 of Power 90!

Today has been a very long but good day! I didn't have to babysit till noon so I was able to go back to sleep for a little while after my daughter went back to sleep. That was awesome, cause I usually wake up at 5am and stay up. Then at 10 am I was able to go do the biometric screening for the local contest I entered and found out that my numbers are all great! I couldn't believe I was able to make it to the coffee shop twice in one week too and its only Wednesday! Woohoo!

I was finally able to take a shower last night after the plumber told us the downstairs pipes don't affect us up here. So we were not using our water or anything all day and we could have been yesterday. Oh well, better safe than sorry.

I had a good sandwich for lunch today with the leftover turkey, and we had to use the last of it, so we made these really yummy "healthy" enchiladas. The weren't clean cause of the tortillas and cheese, but they were good. I'll post the recipe with the pic of the last bit that was in the pan.

So today was my cardio workout for the power 90 and I've mentioned before that I have to modify it a bit to make it through parts of the workout. Well tonight as I'm getting right up to the point that I have to start modifying it our renter walks in and starts staging stuff in the garage, to take to his room downstairs. Not only does he keep coming back every few seconds with stuff, he is also trying to have a conversation with me!! I'm sweating, fat flapping, doing the second set of jumping jacks, panting and talking about ski boots, then I'm running talking about skiing, and then I realize after pushing myself so hard trying not to look like a whimp that I've made it through that whole section and totally through the whole next section without any modifications! I was embarrassed to have someone I barely knew watching me, but I'm really glad he was there cause I pushed myself harder than I ever have before doing these workouts!! Now when I do it again in two days I have to push myself that hard again cause I know I can now!

Well its late and I need to get ready for bed. Catch you all tomorrow!


My lunch :) so good. Just Ezekiel bread, mustard and leftover turkey!


Our dinner Turkey enchiladas. One can of black beans drained, leftover roasted turkey or chicken shredded, a can of diced tomatoes or 2 diced tomatoes, 1/2 of an onion chopped, one larger size can of enchilada sauce (red or green whatever you prefer) medium size tortillas, and 1 cup of shredded cheese (we use the aged white cheddar cause its not dyed.) You can use more cheese but the more you use the less healthy they are. You basically just mixed everything up in a big mixing bowl, put it in the tortillas and wrap them up and place them side by side in a 13"x9" baking pan and then pour the enchilada sauce over the top. Reserve some of the cheese to put on at the end. I do about 1/2 the cheese in the filling, and 1/2 on top. 350 degrees for 40 minutes. If you want a vegetarian version replace the meat with kidney beans. It is delicious either way! Its become one of my favorite meals.!

Day 23 done and started a challenge!

My small Alaskan town has been doing a biggest loser sort of competition for 3 years now called Healthier You. I entered in the contest today. I'm really excited about it. I'm going to have a biometric screening done tomorrow and I'll know how all my blood levels are, which are always great even though I've been heavy since high school. I'm over weight, but healthy. I'll know tomorrow if my numbers are still good for sure though.

After I weighed in at 236.5 lbs this morning (with snow boots and clothes on LOL) I came home and added some cardio to my day since I'm only doing strength training today. I did P90X Kenpo X and boy was I sweating. I wanted to do that one workout out of all 12 P90X workouts cause I am used to Tae Kwon Do cause I grew up taking the class for about 8 years of my life. So its a great workout, but not anything I can't do. I loved it, so I'm going to be adding that one and possibly the Cardio from P90X occasionally the other day I do strength training. It will give me a little more of a kick in my weight loss and building my muscle strength. I do love the Power 90 I just didn't want to do the same cardio workout 6 days a week LOL.

So remember how I said I was super sweaty, well it was really bad cause I was working out in our living room while my daughter hung out in her jumper and we had the wood stove burning so it was like 80 degrees in here. I was literally dripping. The worse possible thing went wrong when you are dripping sweat every where, we found out from one of our renters that our plumbing must be backed up. So here I am dripping sweat during my first of 2 workouts today, dishes piled sky high in the sink, kids to clean up after, and bottles to wash, and we can't use our drains all day. We can use the water, but can't let it drain otherwise it comes up the downstairs bath tub! Lets just say I was not a happy camper.

Its now 7:00pm here, the baby is asleep, the plumber just showed up about an hour ago and they are hopefully  fixing it, and I'm sitting here blogging after finishing my strength training workout, sweaty and very stinky and hoping that I don't have to drive to my friend's house to shower tonight, cause going without a shower is not an option! This is also one of the first times that I really want to do dishes in my life LOL. When you have kids to keep high chairs clean for, doing dishes and keeping the sink clear becomes a want, and also a need apparently!

Well good night everyone! I am going to go stink and relax until I find out if I need to go in search of a shower or not!

Here is a pic of one of my favorite clean eating products! I put agave nectar in marinades, on my clean oat waffles in the morning, I was putting it in my coffee before I started drinking it black, and used to sweeten my parfaits with it also. Its a great alternative to refined sugar. But it is still sugar so use it sparingly. 

 

Day 22! My rest day!

So today I didn't have to do a workout but I kept wanting to do one all day after I weighed myself this morning and found that I have lost a total of 8 lbs now and am down to 230.5. Then of course my mother-in-law calls to tell me that the turkey they were bringing over for dinner has turned into them bringing an entire Thanksgiving meal over! I wanted to cry. Well not really but I did have sad thoughts of the scale going back up a couple pounds. Luckily I had one small plate and I shared some of it with my 8 month old and the other 16 month old girl I babysit. I was guilty of eating like 3 pieces of the white bread with butter, but since its my one cheat meal of the week I don't feel too bad about it. At least now I know when they offer dinner to not expect it to be clean and healthy.

Babysitting today was interesting, I got a call from my beach body coach walking through my getting started paperwork and I was talking to her, helping the little girls color, getting my baby up from a nap,and changing diapers while I was on the phone. Its amazing how much better at multitasking I am now. They also gave me a good workout cause the 16 month old, 2 year old, and 3 year old were all wanting me to carry them around like potato sacks, and sitting on my foot while I did leg lifts.

I get so annoyed when my dogs bark because someone is at the door or comes in the house when my daughter is napping, and that happened really early this morning and scared her to death. Just a few minutes ago my brother, who is staying with us, came in and my chihuahua barked but our lab didn't (thank goodness) and I told him if he did it again I was putting him in the washer LOL I wouldn't really do that, but I did put him in there and took a picture, it was pretty funny. Thats the worst part about having a baby and dogs is them acting like a door bell. Someday she'll go to bed later than 6 or 6:30 and won't have to take as many naps so it won't happen as often, but it does suck for now.

So I was going to start adding some tips in here for everyone, so you can see what I'm doing to lose weight and eat clean, so you can see how easy it is. I promise that if you don't live in a small Alaskan town like I do, you have it made and there are no limits to what you can eat to eat clean. We have limited groceries cause we only have one grocery store, and so you get an idea of the cost of produce here, one red bell pepper is $3.99. That is the cost for each red bell pepper. One of these days I'll scan a receipt so you can really see the price. I remember how much cheaper and fresh the fruit and veggies were when I was at school in Washington, I have dreams of the farmer's markets there. Take advantage of the great produce you guys get in the lower 48 states. You are so lucky!

So my first tip is to start adding fresh foods to your diet. I always load up on stuff to make a salad, boneless skinless chicken breast, carrots, eggs apples, bananas, broccoli and pears. Those are always in my fridge. When you have time, after you bring your food home from the grocery store, prep everything ahead of time. Make a huge salad for the next few days, cut up carrot and celery sticks, hard boil eggs, prep the broccoli to steam for dinner, and bake or grill the chicken. Then you don't have the excuse that you don't have time to grab a healthy snack or meal later. I do this all throughout the week. Everything is always ready and on hand now. It saves a ton of time when I'm trying to get lunch and dealing with kids all day.

I will catch up with all of you tomorrow. Have a great night. I hope my tip helps.

 

Day 21 done! Another early morning workout!

I'm always so proud of myself when I can get my workout done in the morning. Not being a morning person, I never feel like doing anything that early, but I put my daughter back down to sleep at 6:30am and went down to the garage and did my cardio workout! I had my pre-workout snack of some Shakeology mixed with some coconut milk and worked out a little bit later. Normally I have a smoothie with the Shakeology for breakfast, but if I have a workout planned early I usually just make it a bit smaller of a snack instead of a full breakfast. I have Shakeology every day. Its a very good protein powder packed with tons of stuff thats great for you. Its expensive, but its worth the money because my health is worth it! 

I was amazed how much I accomplished before my brother, who is visiting, woke up! I did my workout, which was awesome and made me motivated to do more, did the dishes, did some laundry, fed my daughter breakfast after she woke up again, and transformed my mess of a kitchen into a normal clean one! I love how working out in the morning gives me that extra burst of energy.

My favorite snack today was my apple and PB2 (powdered peanut butter 85% less fat than normal peanut butter) I also had a delicious salad for lunch with the salad and chicken I prepped yesterday, and for dinner I ate the chicken again with brown rice, and green beans.

I was so excited to get out of the house today without the baby. Every month or lately its been about every other month I have a waxing appointment. Today I got my eyebrows waxed! I love it cause its the only time I can ever know I can get out of the house and my mother-in-law will watch the baby! I even was able to go to the grocery store afterwards! Woohoo! LOL I was spoiled today.

Starting tomorrow I'm going to start adding helpful tips for eating healthier and being more fit! I hope you stop back in to check it out. I want the things I've learned in my weight loss journey to help others who are also trying to be healthy.

Here are some pics of my favorite clean eating products, Shakeology, PB2, the spices I always put on my chicken before I bake it, and my dinner tonight of brown rice, chicken, and steamed frozen green beans.

Day 20 done!

On top of cleaning my house and getting things ready for my brother to come stay with us, I was able to make-up for missing yesterdays workout this morning and just finished with today's strength workout just now at 7pm after my daughter was asleep. I love days when I can make up for a day I wasn't able to do the workout and not be behind anymore.

Every time I do these workouts I get a little better. I know I pretty much say that in every blog, but it amazes me every time.

So the diet I'm eating now is nothing but whole foods, no sugar, no preservatives, and no artificial sweeteners. When I buy packaged goods it has to have less than 6 grams of sugar and no preservatives. I'm aloud one to two "cheat meals" a week, but its mostly only one a week. The cheat meal isn't aloud to be over 1500 calories. I got some of the ideas for my diet from a book by Jackie Warner and basically just mixed and matched it with the Eat Clean diet, since they are both clean diets. I want to eat this way forever to I add in the cheat meal because for me its unrealistic to never allow an indulgence when you are craving it. Then I would just give up entirely.

On the weekends I always make time to prep things for the coming week, so I took a whole flat (6 or 7 pieces) of boneless skinless chicken breast, portioned a few for myself, and baked it. Now we have chicken for salads and also for dinner if I'm running behind or don't get to the store to buy meat for dinner. I also made a salad in our salad spinner. I like making salads with lots of color. I take about 2 hearts of romaine lettuce, a big handful of spinach, about a quarter of purple cabbage (cut into thinner slices), and then I peel one carrot into the salad so it looks like little ribbons of carrot and then I have a gorgeous salad. I put chicken, tuna, or a hard boiled egg on it with some feta, red onion and a little Annie's salad dressing and its delicious. Its my favorite breakfast.

My favorite snack lately is homemade hummus and some carrot and celery sticks. Its so good and easy to make. I didn't make mine from a recipe, but I had watched my hubby lol so I sort of followed what I know goes in it and it was delicious. One can of garbanzo beans, about 2 tbs of tahini, 1tbs olive oil, 2 to 3 cloves of garlic (crushed and chopped) a splash of lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Put it in a blender, vitamix, or food processor and its delicious.

If you guys want more recipes please ask and I will be happy to give them to you.

The chicken I baked
 

The hummus and veggies.

Make up morning :)

Yesterday was day 19 of my workout, but I had to go to church so I didn't get my workout in last night, but I did it at 7 am this morning. For not being a morning person, I'm always amazed at myself when I actually workout in the morning to make up for the evening before. I also have to do my strength training workout this afternoon when Olivia is napping.  I was so glad to get out of the house for an hour! It had been a week since I had gone anywhere.

I babysat the girls again yesterday and tried to get them involved doing some zumba on the wii, but all I got were stares and them looking at me like I was insane LOL Oh well, I got an extra 20 minutes of cardio in. Having older girls around is getting me used to what its going to be like when my little girl is older. One thing I need to get used to is no privacy :) and another is answering a million questions all day long. By the time may comes and I'm done babysitting the two older girls I'll be ready to have 4 under 4 of my own. LOL yea right, that will never happen. I'm still debating when we want to try for number 2 or if just kid is good.
People who have even just 2 under 2 are my heroes, I'm lucky that I can make it through 40 hours a week. 

I hope all of you are having a great weekend. I'll be back on here later today to write in more depth about my workouts once I'm done with both of them.

Day 18 done :)

Today was a very long day. I had four kids all day instead of half a day and boy did I get a workout with just them today :) Not to mention trying so hard not to snack all day long. For some reason I was hungry all day. I think tomorrow I need to make some hummus and I'll have something yummy to dip my carrot and celery sticks in, then I'll at least have another healthy snack, because all I can think about all day today is eating something bad.  I am finally drinking coffee without any stevia and just a little coconut milk, tomorrow I'm going to start drinking it black. I'm glad I was locked in the house today or I might have bought some oreos or something LOL. My cheat meal can't be till this weekend, so I had to be good.

It was a fairly quiet day other than my friend and her daughter came to visit and we made a fun little craft with the girls today. Little owls made from toilet paper tubes. We also did a lot of coloring as usual and read a couple books. I think my little one may be getting her third tooth in so her being fussy all day was mostly why the day was so long.

After all the kids were gone and I got Olivia fed, bathed and into bed, I got to do my workout. Of course another workout in the garage where someone has to walk in and see me! At least I wasn't in an embarrassing position this time. Today was the circuit workout, and I was so excited to up my weights again. I originally started with 4 lbs weights then went to 8 lbs and today I went to 10 lbs for all but two of the workouts. I'm also happy to say that I'm doing real push-ups for all the push-ups except the seven close push-ups. I love the progress I'm seeing. I haven't weighed myself in awhile, but I'm sure that even if the scale doesn't move very fast that I'm losing inches. I think starting fairly soon I'm going to start adding in some other form of cardio off and on. Maybe some zumba in a class, zumba on the wii, or even one of the p90x workouts if I have time.

I hope you all have a good night. Here are a couple pics, one is my parfait I'm having as a snack tonight, and the other is the little owl craft the girls and I did today.

Day 17 of Power 90 done!

Some mornings I feel bad for my husband, cause I'm not a morning person at all and our daughter likes to wake up at 5am to eat then will either sleep another hour or stay up an hour before she goes back to sleep. This morning she stayed up, and I grew horns and was spitting fire LOL not at her, but at my poor husband because I wanted to sleep in for once. I ended up getting to sleep for a little bit while he hung out with Olivia, and when I woke up an hour later I was perfectly happy. Do any of you have that problem in the morning? I'm awful if I don't get enough sleep.

After I made my coffee and feeding our daughter I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get things ready for the day and the 3 little girls I baby sit. I always save everything for the last minute in the morning, and tomorrow will be a bit different cause my day babysitting starts 2 hours earlier that I'm used to. Luckily the day was pretty uneventful, lots of coloring, then lots of prep for snack and dinner after 2 of the girls went home.

After dinner I did my cardio and ab ripper 100 and pushed myself harder than I ever have before. I forced myself to make it farther through the second set of jumping jacks, running, and running lunges. This time I only had to run in place for about 15 seconds of the whole second set, which is amazing! Every time I did a jumping jack and my belly fat was flapping (sorry for the visual) and the sweat was pouring off my face it just made me push even harder. I'm also noticing that I am getting a little more flexible. I love it! My husband even said he can notice a little bit of a difference and that I look a bit thinner. I'm so excited to keep going. I hope you guys keep reading. :)

I took some pics of  some of the clean/whole foods meals and snacks I ate today. If you want recipes I can give them to you, but I really just make them up as I go and try to do somewhat of a variety.

Every day I have one of my shakeology shakes as breakfast or a snack if I have a different breakfast.

 

Lunch today was a salad with some canned tuna on it since I hadn't baked chicken for lunches yet.

 

Dinner was whole grain rotini noodles with a veggie packed spaghetti sauce, and some chicken breast with a side of broccoli

 

Day 16 of Power 90, and lots of little girls :)

So today I officially started watching two little girls on top of my own little one and the other little girl I've been babysitting since September. So I had 4 little girls under 4! A 3 year old, a 2 year old, a 16 month old and my baby who is 8 months old. Needless to say it was a very busy morning. Lots of coloring, dancing, and answering questions. My favorite two questions of the day are "Why is your house so messy?" (which really its not bad, it was just the toys everywhere) and then a little later "Are you bigger than Brandon?" Brandon is my husband and he's not skinny either, he's a big guy, he is also about to start doing power 90 too. It always feels great to be asked if you are bigger than your husband. I'm not bigger than him, but I guess I'm big enough for her to ask. Gotta love the honesty of a 3 year old.

As usual I have a really hard time not snacking on bits of what I'm feeding the kids if they don't eat it all, so I decided today that instead of eating the other half of a banana twice a day (from two different kid's meals lol) that I'll freeze them to put in smoothies later. That will take away about 110 or more extra calories I don't need to eat.

I finally got Olivia to bed at 6:15pm and everytime I put her to bed I can relax and be glad the day is almost over and finally get some time to myself while I do my workout. I go to the garage to do my circuit dvd and in walks one of our renters (they rent rooms in the downstairs apartment) I'm mid kick back, my pants are too tight, my tank top has flipped up so my tummy is hanging out, and I'm basically dripping sweat. I was so embarassed, but just had to shrug it off and pretend like my red face was just because I'm working out. This has happened a few times now, and luckily I could explain to him that I've been working out to this program and its really working and I love it! Thank goodness our three renters are super nice so he probably won't make fun of me later LOL :)

So I've graduated from knee push-ups and am finally strong enough again to do regular push-ups! I am sooo excited. I couldn't do more than 10 real push-ups in like 5 or so years, so being able to do 50ish over the course of the circuit workout is amazing.

Well I have to go eat my after workout snack and relax with my husband before we crash for the night. Hope to see you back tomorrow.

Pics of my workout area, me doing a push-up :) and a couple of my meals today. Half of a clean oat blueberry waffle and greek yogurt with blueberries, and carne asada "tacos" with homemade salsa and a side of broccoli.

 

 

 

 

So far doing Power 90!

I started doing power 90 on January 2nd, so I'm currently on day 16. Power 90 is a a fairly intense workout dvd set and its been amazing. I've also been eating clean, which (no preservatives, or sugar, and no processed foods) and its making a big difference. Allowing 1 to 2 cheat meals a week, never exceeding 1500 calories in the cheat meal.

Before I had my daughter I was 225 lbs which is way too much on my 5'2" frame, and I actually weighed a couple pounds less after having her, but in the 8 months since she was born I've ballooned to 238.5 lbs :( So I needed to change. I decided to do this before Christmas but had a hard time starting with all the junk food during the holiday season. So after the holidays were over I started and 16 days later I'm  still going strong.

So far I've lost 6.5 lbs but I haven't weighed in for a few days, so I'll see my progress in a couple days when I weigh in again.

Power 90 has been hard but awesome. Its mostly hard trying to find time to workout between babysitting, keeping up with the housework, cooking, and taking care of my 8 month old daughter, but I've made the time, cause it helps me feel better and I actually am a whole lot happier now that I've been working out too.

On day one I did the cardio workout. You should have seen how hard I was breathing, fat flapping, and sweat dripping LOL its not pretty. I couldn't make it through the first part doing the correct arm movement cause my arms hurt and I had to run in place for the second part (which is jumping jacks, running, and running lunges). Now when I did the workout yesterday I can make it through the first part with all the right movements, and make it through the first run of the second part before I feel winded, I can almost make it through the second set of jumping jacks without feeling winded :) So the further I get each time the better I feel. On my first circuit (strength) workout I used 4 lb weights, now I'm using 8 lb weights!

I feel amazing and have those of you following me to thank, because you are making me accountable :) All of you motivate me!

Thank you again, I'll post again tonight about what today brought with babysitting 3 little girls, watching my own little one, my meals, and also my workout.

Here are some pics of me on day 3!