Reflections...

I have made a loaded (LOTS of spinach and kale along with my fruit) green smoothie every day this week and have been impressed with how filling it has ended up being. I feel like I must be forgetting to add things to my food diary because I have so many calories left at dinner time. In fact, Wed I had well over 1000 calories so we went to a really good Chinese buffet for dinner. I am sure I went over my calories, but when we got home we did danced so we worked some of them off again ;) I tried to make some really healthy choices (like salmon) and veggies (though they were loaded with butter :P). I knew I was full by the end of my first plate, but when you're paying $14 to eat, I feel obligated to go back more than once.

Yesterday I opted to hit the treadmill for a quick workout in order to make it to a 10 am appointment. I was quite sore from the CardioX of the day before. I did the 4 mph program and was proud of myself because I made it through 3 minutes at the steep incline before I had to lower it during the run part.  Last time I lowered it at each 2 min interval. Once again I had 1000 calories left at dinner. We ended up having pizza but I ate a large salad before I dug into the pizza so I had one less slice than I thought I would.

Today I did not really feel like exercising.My muscles are still sore from my workouts earlier in the week and I was super tired, but I put on CardioX and did it anyway. I know that the areas that bother me the most won't change unless I do CardioX regularly. The program works and I feel good when I do it. I had to laugh at myself because the whole time I'd think, oh I'll just do this segment and then turn it off. Oh wait, I like this one. I'll do it and then I can turn it off - until there was only 10 minutes left and at that point it's to the core exercises which I really need and I might as well finish it.

I need to figure out an exercise routine so that every day I don't have to decide what I will choose for exercise. I think I may be more likely to end up quitting if I do. I am starting to think about how much time is invested in the exercise too which tends to put a damper on my motivation. I would like to do CardioX at least twice a week, but I enjoy the dancing too. Tues and Thurs I don't have as much time in the mornings so it would  make sense to make them treadmill days. So I am thinking maybe this schedule:

Mon - CardioX
Tues - treadmill
Wed - Just Dance
Thurs - treadmill (or walk outside)
Fri- CardioX

Maybe I'll try that next week and see how I like it.

April Challenge: Week 1 Weigh in

173.3

I think I need to get a real scale. And a heart rate monitor.

I am sore in my arms and calves from dancing yesterday. YAY! My core could really use some work which makes me lean toward doing CardioX today, but I am having a hard time talking myself into it....

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Just finished CardioX. I am impressed. It wasn't as hard as I expected it to be even with being sore!  Apparently I have built up some muscles after all :) I even did the yoga better than usual. I can already feel it in my stomach so I know I will be paying for it later today and tomorrow! But yay for following through!

Eating and Just Dancing

Back to the grind.

Today I debated between the treadmill, CardioX, or Just Dance. Just Dance won because I wanted to play all by myself without having to take the boys in to account. We discovered with JD4 that there are 4 different sweet modes. We played 10 minutes of almost all of them, but today I opted for the 45 min of the kickboxing version. I remembered how much I enjoy kickboxing and would really rather have done a full 45 min just of that! Unlike the previous versions of JD, 4 counts calories as opposed to sweat points. At the end of my session it registered only 117 calories burned :/ I think I need to invest in a heart monitor if I am going to continue doing JD for my exercise so I can have a more accurate count.

Despite the low calorie burn, I think I played the day well. We just finished up dinner and this is what my numbers look like:

Pretty awesome! I've hit all my goals and still have carbs and fat to go! What's the difference?

I started my day with a chocolate strawberry, banana, pineapple green smoothie. Totally loaded it up on the kale and spinach and didn't eat anything else until lunch which was yummy leftover beef stirfry. I felt like I was snacking often today, but apparently it wasn't as bad as I thought or maybe I just didn't account for it well enough :P Dinner was a baked sweet potato, green salad and tuna on crackers. I was surprised at how full I felt afterwards too. Now if only I could keep it up!

I was looking through the message board on MFP and an April weight loss challenge caught my eye. Many of the goals were to lose 5 pounds.  I got to thinking about this and realized that 5 pounds is totally doable. If I lost 5 pounds every month for the next 3 months, by the end of June I'd be really close to my goal weight!! The question is if I am dedicated enough. I think I really need to pull out the CardioX and use it consistently. I loved the way it made me feel and it works. But it is hard work.

On a side note, my food processor isn't working :( I made some delicious almond butter the other day and was wanting to make more when I discovered it is broken. WAH!