Holiday Hoedown Challenge- Week 1 Summary

Week 1 of the challenge is a wrap. This week I logged 372 minutes of exercise. This was the breakdown:

Wednesday- Rest
Thursday- 80 mins
Friday- 56 mins
Saturday- 80 mins
Sunday- 55 mins
Monday- 45 mins
Tuesday- 56 mins

I basically stuck to the TurboFire/Chalean Extreme hybrid plan and I added in two extra cardio workouts. One was a makeup Turbo Fire workout from the previous week and the other was a 30 min. run. Overall it was a good week. I felt like I was making up for the damage from the previous week where I ate out like three or four times and had A LOT of baked goods (Hello Brownies!). I lost about a pound this week which is also good.

Week 2 will continue with logging exercise minutes as the Fitness Challenge and the Non-Fitness Challenge is to drink half your weight in water daily. I really need to work on my water intake so I am loving this challenge. One of my fellow Winter Warriors shared that she puts out the total amount of water she wants to consume for the day in a pitcher and then makes sure that it is empty by the end of the day. I like that idea and might try that. I even brought my own PUR pitcher along while visiting family for Thanksgiving! It's THAT serious!  Also, I think this challenge is well timed because if you're filled up with water, it will make it much harder to overeat during the holidays. Bring it on Week 2!

Quote of the Day

"True nobility is not about being better than anyone else. It’s about being better than you used to be."

-Dr. Wayne Dyer

My Winter Workout Plan

I am not really good at getting out of the house to workout in the winter time and that usually puts a damper on my workout plans. Last year I bought a treadmill in January to encourage working out at home (and it worked!). This year I will be doing DVDs. A little over a month ago I started doing the Chalean Extreme/TurboFire hybrid schedule. The entire program  is five months long so it will take me through the winter. Chalean Extreme is a program for strength training while TurboFire is cardio conditioning with High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). I got these programs back in the summer while the P90X/ Insanity craze was going on. They are all sold by Beachbody. I took pics while I opened them and saved them just for you :-). So here goes:

Both programs come with a workout schedule/guide and a meal plan book. The TurboFire kit has a bunch of DVDs so I didn't take a picture of all of them. A few other items that came in the kits are two lower body bands, a resistance band, a tape measure and body fat calipers.

The first month of the program was a recovery month for people who completed another program right before starting this one so I supplemented the workouts with walking or running on my treadmill. That worked out pretty well and I lost about 4 lbs. I feel like I lost a lot of inches but I haven't taken my progress measurements as yet. I started the second month this week and it's a little more hectic. My body is definitely feeling it so far. I will keep you all updated on how it's going.

Share: What are your workout plans to get you through the winter?

Winter Warriors!!

The Holiday Hoedown at the Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans starts today!! I am on the Winter Warriors Team. For this challenge we will have both fitness and non-fitness challenges. The fitness challenge for this week is to log as many exercise minutes as possible. The non- fitness challenge is to write down our goals. Here are mine:

Fitness challenge: Currently doing TurboFire/ Chalean Extreme Hybrid so I will be following that workout plan. I am in my second month of it. It's between 30-70 minutes per day 6 days a week.

Non-fitness challenge: For calories I do a diary of everything I eat and also add portion sizes if I overate. I may add in actually counting the calories if time permits. For now I just estimate and add a 200 calorie catch all for anything I may miss or underestimate. I would also like to get up to drinking 64 ounces of water per day. I currently do about 48 on average.

Fitness goal for the entire challenge: Lose 10lbs. Wear size 12 jeans. (I wore a size 12 dress this past weekend though!)
The challenge ends on December 22. You can find more info about it here.

Could chocolate be the remedy for my sweet tooth?

I am determined to get my sugar addiction under control. Cookies, cake and pies were made for me. In an effort reduce my consumption and give this weight loss process a little boost, I decided to substitute milk chocolate for dark chocolate. I have never been a dark chocolate lover before this but thanks to my mini relationship with Trader Joe this summer, I discovered that dark chocolate and I could really become friends. Well, my exploration continued since then and I have found a few other brands that I like. Dove is currently my favorite. I love the fact that one bar is 190 calories and after eating it I feel like I've had enough. I even had days where I split one bar into two to save for the next day . In addition, since switching to dark chocolate I consume waaay less of the other stuff (cookies etc.) and I don't even have chocolate everyday. Let's hope the trend continues.