Day 17: New Playlist

So I decided to create a new playlist for my ipod specifically for running. I made on before but it was a terrible, terrible playlist. Here's my new and improved list:

(click the name to hear the song!)

Use Somebody - Cornell Chordials

It Happens - Sugarland

She's an angel - They Might Be Giants

(this song probably won't pump anyone else up but I just think

this is kind of a funny song which motivates me)

Hey Ya - Outkast

Undo It - Carrie Underwood

The Fighter - Gym Class Heroes

Bulletproof - La Roux

Runaway Baby - Bruno Marz

(this is powertrack on my running+ app)

I tried out my new playlist this morning and it worked pretty well. It's 26.3 minutes long which is good because today, I was starting to get tired towards the end of Undo It so I hit my powertrack button so it played runaway baby and then continued with the fighter! So with playing runaway baby twice, I ran 32 minutes. Woo!

Day 16: *crickets*

It's getting kinda hard to write something everyday... Everyday I struggle to find something to write about.

Today was a pretty normal day. I went to work, ranted with a friend about how we can't do the Color Run because of a marching band competition on the same day, ate a piece of pizza which I didn't realize had bacon on it until I paid for it, pushed around heavy carts and went to sleep. lol.

Day 15: Week 3 Update!

Even after my terrible food yesterday, I still managed to not only lose weight, but also lose some inches!

	Waist	Arms	Thighs	Hips	Weight
Week 1	31 ½	11 ¼	21	37 ½	140.0
Week 2	31 ½	10 ¾	21	37 ¼	139.0
Week 3	30 ½	10 ¾	21	37	138.4

So my slow by steady progress continues! Woo-hoo! 

Day 14: Food

So today, my dad took me out to eat at Applebee's and on the way there I kept telling myself I was just going to get a salad, but as soon as I looked at the menu, I knew what I really wanted. It was a Garlic rosemary chicken fettuccine dish. It looked amazing. As I looked through the description, it didn't too unhealthy: 

Chicken with garlic, rosemary, asparagus, artichokes, Portobello mushrooms, and tomatoes over fettuccine with bruschetta and Parmesan. .

 The only thing that sounded sketchy to me was the garlic sauce and garlic bread that comes on the side so I decided to order it instead of the salad I told myself I would get. Boy was I wrong... When I got home, I looked it up on MyFitnessPal to look at the calories. 1150.  I ate about 1150 calories on a dish that, quite frankly, I didn't enjoy that much. It was good! But not 1150 calories good. Then to top off the day, when I went to work, I just went through the Italian Express and just grabbed a piece of pizza. I didn't really know what it was. All I knew was that it had chicken on it so it had to be good right? Wrong again. I managed to grab the last piece of Buffalo Ranch Pizza on the stand. And by Buffalo Ranch Pizza, I mean a piece of pizza bread, smothered in ranch, topped with a ton of cheese and spicy chicken pieces. Looking at Hyvee's Nutrition guild, I realized I picked up a 515 calorie piece of pizza. That's 515 calories for one piece of pizza... 

I need to start tracking my food on MyFitnessPal. I need to be aware of what I'm putting in my body. I thought my pasta dish at Applebee's would be semi healthy. Guess not...

Day 13: Nike+

I love running with my Nike+ app on my iPod touch but resently I found Nike Running+ so I tried that! It worked great for the first two weeks and then suddenly it decided to stop working today. About twenty minutes into my run I realized it never told me when I passed a mile. I thought I had to have ran a mile. I had been running for twenty minutes! When I looked down at my iPod it said 0.29. To be completely honest, I seriously thought for a second that I had really only run that far. Its sad but it's true. Once I had realized why that was impossible, I slowed down to a walk and tried to figure out what was wrong with it. I never did.

I was kind of upset that I didn't know how far I had run and that it wouldn't count on my Nike+ account online but I remembered that I did actually run so I still burned those calories whether the computer knows it or not. So I plugged in my iPod into my computer to sync the rest of my runs from the past two weeks. Nothing showed up. Now I was really mad. I had no proof that I had ever run in the last two weeks which meant that my goals on Nike+ weren't going to be "met". I know that I did it but I was excited to see the screen that says "Congrats! You did it!" Oh well. I ate some Chobani greek yogurt and got ready for the day.

Day 12: Oh, the irony...

As much as I hate to admit it, I'm a ridiculously lazy person. I've become so content with sitting around and doing nothing while I think about how awesome it will to be skinny or healthy one day. Somehow the irony of that situation fails to smack me in the face until hours later...

I managed to make myself walk 1.5 at a fast past while I searched for used color guard uniforms on my laptop. Maybe if I told myself that I can only look at pintrest while I'm on the treadmill, I'll actually be closer to the skinny, bikini wearing, motivating women on the fitness category!

Looking back, I wish I would have just run that 1.5 miles but walking is better than nothing.
 I know that I'm can run 3 miles but I never have the motivation to when I'm alone at home in our spare bedroom...

Day 11: Hmmm...

Yet another day lost... I'm sure what else to say... Well... I don't want to say it was a lost. I got to spend time with my family and I got to see my grandpa and learn things about him that I didn't know so the day wasn't a lost. In terms of eating right and exercise yes but otherwise, no. It was a good day.

Day 10: Something needs to change...

I need a new motivation.... cause what I'm doing right now... isn't working. The most productive thing I've done this week is play "tennis  with a couple friends for an hour or so. Other than that, I've done nothing. Don't get me wrong, this post isn't about putting myself down. This is about me coming to the realization that I need to push myself because this is going to be harder than I thought it was going to be. It's almost comical because every day I tell myself, once it gets a little darker and cooler outside, you are going to go outside and run! And then 10 o'clock comes around and I realize I'm sitting on the coach on pintrest while my dad makes me a strawberry ice cream smoothie. I want the smoothie but I know I shouldn't have the smoothie... but can I really just tell my dad I don't want it when he went through the trouble of making it and pouring it into a glass just for me? 

On another note, I really want to get a BodyMedia band. I had one for a couple of months and it seemed to help. I was conscious of what I was doing and sometimes, it was even a competition between me and my mom to see who could burn the most calories or get the most vigorous activity... She won most of the time because she's a aerobic teacher but oh well... I've been looking for them on ebay and I haven't won one yet but I'm still looking. I would love to get one of the core or link ones but those, of course, cost more. I guess I'll just settle for the old version. 

Day 9: Change of plans

I was so ready to run this morning and be a good little runner like I'm suppose to, but things happen that no one can control. I ended up having to drive an hour and half to the hospital for my grandpa. Not what I really expected to happen. And of course, when things don't go according to plan, I fall off the wagon which is kinda what I did... I had a Starbucks frappuccino (290 calories... I promised myself I wouldn't drink my calories) and a homemade egg mcmuffin for breakfast. Then for lunch I had jimmy johns. Sounds somewhat healthy right? Until you load up your sandwich with Mayo and then have a Root Beer to drink (again with the drinking your calories...). And on top of that beautiful menu, I had a quarter pounder with cheese, medium fry and a root beer at McDonalds...
I know eatting like that is terrible and I keep promising myself that I'll stop but I always fall back. This doesn't mean I'm giving up. I lost another day. Oh well. Get back up on your horse...
(At least when I got home I played tennis with some friends for an hour or so.... not that it will make up for the three thousand calories I ate today...)

Day 8: Week 2 update!

It's been one week since I started this blog and I definitely feel different than I did! Here's my measurements compared to last week!
                        Week 1           Week 2
Waist                31 1/2             31 1/2
Arms                 11 1/4             10 3/4
Thighs                21                   21
Hips                  37 1/2             37 1/4
Weight              140.0              139.0

So it's not a huge difference... but it's enough to make me feel like I'm making progress. I need to continue this lifestyle is a want to see major differences in a couple of months/ years. I'm so happy with progress like this as long as it continues to happen. I don't care if it takes six months to lose 10 pounds. As long as I'm healthy and happy, it doesn't matter.

Day 7: Lazy Days

I absolutely love lazy days! Sitting around and doing nothing is one of my favorite pass times. But seriously... who doesn't. The most productive thing I did today was the half hour I spent at work pushing big rows of carts around...

Now that I know it's possible for me to do something crazy like the warrior dash, I need to start pushing myself harder everyday during my run. It's going to suck while I'm running but the feeling I'll have afterwards will be well worth the pain. 

You never regret a hard workout, but you always regret not doing it when you had the chance. 

Day 6: The Warrior Dash

Day 6:
I forgot to write yesterday so I'll do two posts today. Yesterday was crazy! It was the hardest, yet most rewarding thing I think I have ever done. There were so many times where I just wanted to go off the track and sit down and rest but I knew I had to keep going because my whole family was pushing me. I didn't want them to have to wait for me. I didn't want to disappoint them. I pushed myself at the end to the point that I was starting to tear up. I don't know if it was because I was finally getting it through my thick skull that I can do anything, or that I couldn't breath because my skirt was too tight. lol. Whatever the reason was (I'm hoping it was the first), I'm glad that I did the Warrior Dash. It helped me realize that this is going to be hard to have a better lifestyle and lose weight, but it will be soo worth it in the end.

Our Warrior Dash group after the Race. We wore Show Choir out-fits!

Day 5: Quick Post!

Day 5:
My Egg McMuffin was A-mazing. It only took two minutes to make and then I was out the door! All I had to do was pop the egg into the microwave for a minute while my English muffin was in the toaster and then add cheese and ham! I didn't have time to make turkey bacon this time but I definitely want to try it some time (only one piece of course).
I am extremely sore today from my guard workout yesterday! I couldn't remember what we did that would make my butt so sore but then I remembered we did these pelvic thrust things while you're in a table top position... I'm not really sure what they're called but I am ridiculously sore and it makes me nervous for how I'm going to do tomorrow at THE WARRIOR DASH! I'm extremely excited and yet numbingly nervous... I'll tell you if I died or not tomorrow....

Day 4: Homemade Egg McMuffins and Pintrest Workouts

Day 4:
Today was... strange. It started out the same as yesterday. I couldn't get up till eleven and then when I did, I was sluggish and tired the first half of the day. I'm not quite sure why this is but I have a sneaking hunch that it's because I'm not even disciplined enough to force myself out of bed.
Anyway, when I got out of bed I decided I was going to make homemade Egg McMuffins. When we went grocery shopping yesterday I picked up some English Muffins and cheese and turkey bacon just so I could make some freezable McMuffins today. So I cracked an egg into each well of a jumbo cupcake tin and then poked the yoke and added salt and pepper. I baked them at 350 for about 30 minutes (to tell the truth, I forgot about them and then realized they were in there. When I pulled them out, they were perfect!). I wrapped them in freezer paper and then tin foil and put them in the freezer! I'm pretty excited for tomorrow to try them!
On pintrest last night I found a fun workout that I really wanted to try out with my guard girls so I sent a picture of it to our coach and we tried it today.

Wow was it difficult. I did not expect that. My thought was that it would just be 52 small little workouts and then we'd move on to something else. This was not the case. We ended up doing it three times in a row and because my coach is a terrible shuffler, we would have to 10 pushups and then another 4 and then another 7. It wasn't easy. And to add to our misery, the deck I grabbed to bring to practice didn't have any aces in them which meant no breaks. I have no idea where they went... After we finally got done with that "fun" exercise, we moved onto our regular workout which consists of us staring at our coach's iPad and doing whatever it tells us to do for thirty minutes. We do fifteen exercises for two minutes each which normally wouldn't be that hard but this app doesn't seem to realize that you can't hold a plank for fifteen minutes with no break. We had to hold a plank, mt climbers, heel lifts, mt climbers hold, side plank on each side, plank on your forearms and so on and so on. Needless to say, my arms and abs are killing me.

Day 3: I hate multi-grain bread...

Day 3:
Even though I had slept nine or so hours, I could not get out of bed today. I just laid there wondering why I couldn't get up. Then I remembered how lazy I was. I finally pulled myself out of bed at eleven. I knew that because I didn't work out, I would have to do something later in the day and I would really have to watch what I ate. I was really craving a subway sandwich but 1.) I didn't want to drive down there and 2.) I didn't want to waste money. So I decided to make my own. I dug through the fridge and whipped out what I thought would go together nicely and came up with a turkey, ham, spinach and green pepper sandwich. And it was delicious. There was just one problem. I used white bread instead of the multi-grain bread I saw in the fridge. I've always had a problem with that bread. In my personal opinion I think it's too dense... and gross... but I know it's good for me so I'll force myself to like it. lol

Day 2: Heart Rates and the "Fat Burning Zone"

Day 2:
Alrighty then. So today was my wake up that some days are going to suck. A lot. When I ran yesterday, I felt energized and happy. That did not happen today. I could only run a mile. My feet were killing me. My back was aching. I couldn't breath. It was terrible. I was so disappointed in myself that I couldn't push myself harder to run more than one tiny  mile. Even though I couldn't run anymore, I forced myself to walk another mile at an incline of 10. Now that may seem dumb and you may think that it didn't keep my heart rate up but I checked my heart rate at around 1.40 miles and I was at 146. That's a pretty high heart rate for a 17 year old who is WALKING.
So I remembered seeing something on Pintrest about the fat burning zone so as soon as I was done running/ walking I grabbed my laptop and did some research. This is what I discovered, but if you're lazy like me and don't want to read a article about it here's a fun picture that's just as good!

Found via Pintrest on GetFitPartner's tumblr

So! With this chart, I found out that my max is about 203 bpm, but for now, we'll say I'm 20 so my max heart rate will be 200. With my heart rate being 146 while I was walking, I was just barely in the Aerobic Fitness which is right about the Target Fat Burning zone. If you can't read the benefits of the zones, here they are:

Max Performance Capacity: 

~Tones the neuro muscular system

~Increases maximum sprint race speed

Lactate Threshold:

~Increases anaerobic tolerance

~Improves high speed endurance

Aerobic Fitness:

~Enhances Aerobic power

~Improves blood circulation

Targets Fat Burning:

~Increases metabolism & aerobic endurance

~Strengthens body for higher intensity work

Basic Endurance:

~Helps &speeds up recovery after heavier exercises

Another important note I want to add to this chart is that the fat burning zone doesn't mean that you're burning more fat per se. It just means that the body burns a higher percentage of calories from the fat when your heart rate is in this zone. When you work harder and get your heart rate up to 70-90%, then you burn a greater number of calories overall. 

I believe that knowledge is power. Facts like these will hopefully keep me motivated to keep going and never give up. It's easier to keep going when you understand that as long as you're heart rate is up, you're still doing good for your body. 

Day 1: Starting thoughts and a little Backround

Day 1:

I'm starting this blog, not only to motivate me and keep me on track but also so that later, I can look back and see what I looked like and how I felt about exercise and most importantly, how I feel about myself.

My current weight is 140 pounds. I'm not happy with how I look and I'm definitively not happy with how I feel. I'm always tired and I can't walk up two flights of steps without feeling winded. I've always been part of at least one sport (Soccer in elementary, volleyball in middle school and tennis and marching band in high school) and yet, I've never been thin or even close to being thin. I've always been chubby and overweight. The lightest I ever remember being was in middle school when my mom and I were living in our condo while my dad got our house ready. My mom had decided to try to lose weight so we moved our treadmill into her room and made a goal to lose weight. We both lost quite a bit of weight. I got down to 125ish while my mom did amazing and felt so good, she went out and bought a bikini. I was so proud of her, and we both felt great. I still wasn't where I wanted to be but I still felt better than I did before. But that feeling didn't last very last for either of us. We both gained everything back when we moved back in with my dad and started eating my dad's cooking again. We went from eating lean pockets and popcorn to eating fried chicken and hamburgers with chips. 

After watching years of the Biggest Loser with my mom, I'm come to realize that if they can do it, so can I. They are 300 pounds and 40 years old. I'm a seventeen year old who weights 140 pounds. I can do this.