One Hundred Pushup Challenge

Last week I mentioned several goals that I am going to attempt to reach in the next 12 weeks. Well, last night I was laying in bed goofing around on the internet and I realized that if I didn't try to fall asleep fast, I was going to blow past that 6 hour minimum sleep requirement. I think I actually managed to get 6 1/2 hours of sleep. Woohoo!!! I would like to think that someday I'll have the discipline to fall asleep on time and get 8 hours of sleep a night, but when you get up at 4:00 a.m. that's kind of hard to do. Then again, I've been known to have wacky sleep patterns. Next week I could be going to bed at 6:30 and sleeping all the way until 4:00. Oh that would be so lovely.

In my last post, I also mentioned I would think over the weekend about a reasonable amount of weight to lose in the next 12 weeks. When I have been consistently working out & eating right, the most I have ever lost in a week was 6 lbs (although this was a one time thing and out of the norm). The recommended amount of weightloss is 2 lbs/week. However, the bigger/heavier you are, the more you tend to lose per week. I decided that for me, a 2.5 lbs loss per week would make me very happy. At that rate, I would be down 30 lbs by the end of the Herbalife Weightloss Challenge. Not too shabby.

One more additional thing. I have been trying for awhile now to get my husband to do P90X or Body For Life, but he keeps brushing me off. Apparently he thinks the Army's way of working out is so much better (insert tone of sarcasm). I don't give him too much of a hard time considering he is working out everyday. Honestly, I'm just a really competitive person and wanted to rope him into doing one of the programs so we could compete for progress (not quite sure if this is healthy for a marriage, but moving on). Well, thankfully I found another way to compete with him. During a google search one night, I came across the One Hundred Pushup Challenge. Over the course of 6 weeks, you build your endurance and reps of pushups until you can do 100 in a row. Boy does that sound fun. NOT! If there's one thing I love it's a challenge/competition and testing limits. While 100 pushups sounds almost mythical to me at the moment, I sure would love to see if I can do it. And you know what they say, misery loves company. That's why I suckered the hubs into this crazy plan of mine!

Goal Setting

My least favorite day of the year is Dec. 31st. I hate New Year's eve and have been known to be quite grumpy on this night. To me, it is the ultimate reminder of the failed resolutions made the previous New Year's eve. Infact, several years ago I stopped making resoluations. Why make resolutions once a year that you will most likely not keep? Seems like a complete waste of time to me.

I have found that if I want to obtain my goals, I have to set small goals that lead up to the grand finale. Yes, I would LOVE to lose 100 lbs (not lying) but who wants to stare at a huge goal like that? Talk about depressing. If I woke up every morning and thought "Wow, only 96 more lbs to go," I'd probably cry all day. This is why I believe in mini goals. Achieving a goal is such a fantastic feeling. How many of us achieve a goal and say, "Ok. That's it. That was fun, but I'm done?" Well, I don't know about you, but I sure don't. The feeling of mastering a goal just fuels the fire and motivates me to tackle another one!

On Tuesday, I start another Herbalife Weightloss Challenge. With the last challenge I took a "let's see what can happen" attitude. Now that I know I am capable of losing weight if I put my mind to it, I'm going to give this next challenge everything I have. So, in order to do this, I need to set my goals. Here goes.

* Drink the recommended amount of water (1/2 of your body weight in ounces)
* Get atleast 6 hours of sleep a night. This may not sound like a lot, but for me it is.
* Workout 6 days a week.
* Do not eat out (I will make an acception if I have company...which is rare)
* Learn to eat my apples....without peanut butter....sigh
* PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE portion control
* Take my vitamins (gag...i hate vitamins)

Ok, that's enough goals for now. I'm going to give it more thought and see how much weight I think I can realistically lose in the next 12 weeks.

142/97/95

Now, how's that for a title? Those are obviously not my measurements (I don't think even Barbie is that out of proportion). It's definitely not my eyesite. So what could it possibly be? If you guessed the countdown to my important upcoming dates, you guessed right! Yay! 142 days until we leave for the honeymoon, 97 days until Jason is living in Denver, and 95 days until Jason is finished with active duty Army. YAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!! Now, I should probably explain the reasoning (other than being excited) that I chose to blog about these countdowns.

142: Well, this is pretty obvious. That's how many days I have until I have to face the final test and wear a bathingsuit...IN PUBLIC. I don't even own a go-to bathingsuit. I have been limping by on too small boardshorts and tanktops for far too long. The other day I was cleaning my closet (real shocker) and I came across a bathing suit I bought probably 3 years ago hoping to wear someday. It's sad that 3 years later, and I'm no where close to wearing that thing.

97: Who wouldn't be excited to have their husband FINALLY live with them after 9 months of wedded bliss? I am beyond excited and having a very hard time patiently awaiting this day. However, my waistline is not excited. Case in point, I gained 5 lbs back while the hubs was home. I like to look at that 5 lbs as a learning opportunity (ahem, *cough* *cough*...excuse). Atleast now I know what I'm up against and I am going to have to discipline myself to control my portions and not eat more just because my husband can eat enough to feed a small army and barely gain an ounce.

92: Jason will be kissing Ft. Polk goodbye in 92 days. (Insert angels singing the hallelujah chorus). So, why did I add this? I'm a stress eater and while I will be going crazy with excitement when having him here is so close, I'm sure I'll be worrying like crazy:
* How are we going to fit in a tiny apartment
* Am I going to continue eating well and not let his eating habits influence me
* And my favorite.....how am I going to handle living with a guy (for more than two weeks at a time?)

So, there you have it. I have a lot to look forward to in the next couple of months...and ALOT of work to do!

10 Pounds Lost

Normally when I disappear from the blogging world, it typically means that I'm not behaving myself (eating poorly and not exercising). Well, that's not the case right now. I just didn't feel like I had anything too exciting to talk about....until today!

Several days ago, I hit the 10 lb mark. I didn't want to say anything right away because I wanted to make sure that I had really lost 10lbs (i.e. it was a "true" weightloss, not just a fluke with losing water weight that would be back in another day or two). Well, I just stepped off the scale and I'm happy to say that I have officially lost 10 lbs!

So, what have I been doing different? I think I might have mentioned several weeks ago that I was giving up soda. I'm not giving it up completely and will allow myself to have one on special occassions. Well, after I gave up soda, I started drinking a lot of juice. Considering how much sugar is in juice, this was just as damaging as drinking soda, so I had to slowly break myself of that habit. Actually, it wasn't that hard. If you don't want to be tempted by something, then don't surround yourself by it. So, I simply stopped buying juice. Well, that left me with a problem; what do I drink? Well, duh. The obvious answer would be water, but there's one little problem. I HATE the tap water at my apartment. It is beyond nasty and you definitely have to choke it down. So, as much as I hate to admit it, I have become a fan of bottled water. And oddly enough, since I started this love affair with bottled water, I have only had maybe one craving for soda and maybe two or three cravings for juice. What a relief!

I continue to truck along with P90X. I actually find some of the workouts fun. Yes, I said FUN! The only one that holds me back is the plyometrics. I have a feeling that I would be having a blast with this workout, but living in a second floor apartment, I always feel extremely guilty for jumping around on the floor at 4:45 in the morning. I can only hope that my neighbors don't sleep out in the living room. Atleast I haven't had any noise complaints yet! Yesterday, I did Kenpo which is a form of karate. Holy smokes. You know those hidden muscles that very rarely seem to come out? Yep, I found a few new ones yesterday. My whole back is screaming and yelling at me. Not to mention, I still haven't recovered from my legs & back workout from Friday, so I'm just sore all over! Oh well, I'll definitely take the soreness. It's a reminder of what I'm working towards.

The Good, The Bad, And The Double Ugly

Well, while I had a fun weekend (The good) , I didn't have a very productive weekend (The Bad). My mom got up here Friday night and I had a wonderful, yet not so healthy meal of prime rib, potatoes and dessert (The Ugly). I managed to behave myself and not completely over indulge...then came Saturday. It started off well enough, but then we discovered a new Chinese buffet for lunch, and then for dinner, I decided to try out a new philly cheesesteak recipe I had found (The Double Ugly). Wow...talk about bad for you food overload all combined with not working out (We did go on a very long walk Friday night though). However, the scale wasn't too mean to me this morning...Only about 1/2 lbs increase.

So, to counteract all the badness from the weekend, I'm adding an extra cardio workout Monday through Wednesday. In P90X, they actually call this Doubles, so I'm really not even straying from the program. Hopefully this will knock me down a pound or two by my weigh-in. One of my goals was to lose every week, even if it was a small amount.

I forgot to mention another goal of mine. I plan on doing two rounds of P90X. And I just realized the coolest thing ever. My round 2 of P90X will end on November 6th; the same exact day we leave for Jamaica! Back to the goal...right now I'm doing wimpy girl push-ups (using my knees). By the end of round 2, I want to be able to crank out 100 REAL PUSH-UPS. I really don't think that it's too far of a stretch. When in shape, I tend to be very strong in the upper-body, which isn't the norm for females. I think it will be a fun, yet hard goal to work towards.

Tired Kayla = Cranky Kayla

Yesterday started off well enough. I made the usual wakeup call to Jason, struggled to get out of bed, and finished workout #3 of P90X (arms & back). The workout went great. Infact, so far, it's been my favorite! Probably because it didn't involve massive amounts of pushups.

Well, for some odd reason, the good day just went away and the bad mood set in. I was tired, cranky, and just wanted to go home and sleep. You get one "free class" for the weightloss challenge (meaning you don't have to pay money into the pot) per weight loss challenge, and I figured last night would have been a good night to use my class. Jason didn't agree. In the middle of my whining and crying tirade he told me, in a very firm voice that, "You're going to class." It was one of those voices where I knew it wasn't up for argument. So, I did what all mature 28 year old women do; whined and cried and said "why can't you just be nice and supportive?" Well, thankfully the 2 year old tantrum didn't last too long and then I realized he was being supportive. He gave me the support I needed to get my butt in gear and get to class.

Ok, now that I told you about my immature tendencies, let me share the good news! I was the winner of the week (lost the most weight)! Woohoo!!!! Since last Wednesday, I had lost a total of 4.6 lbs. The weightloss challenge only has 3 more weeks, so I really need to kick it into high gear and not get sidetracked!

Push-ups = Pain

I have done my fair share of complaining about the military. Mainly just complaining about switched leave dates, or having a weekend pass take way to long (in my opinion) to be approved, or just not being to see my hubby in general. Well, I found another thing to complain about when it comes to the military: MILITARY PUSH-UPS. If I had to choose one word to describe them, it would be sucky, or maybe awful? Painful comes to mind. Difficult, nearly impossible, insane, crazy, out of your mind...ok, that was obviously more than one word, but you get the point. The only thing worse than doing military push-ups over and over is tossing in reps of diamond push-ups...OUCH...but they must be working, because once again, little forgotten muscles are yelling at me again!