Victory at the Gym

Today was quite a victorious gym day.  Not only did I manage to make it in before midnight but I had an awesome workout.  Before I go on to my lovely story I figured I'd grace you all with daily pieces of my my workout and eating. Mainly just to keep myself accountable. lol.

My  favorite meal of the day has to be dinner. There is so much effort put into dinner and best of all I get to have this meal with my lovely husband. Today's dinner consisted of pork loin cube steak, a small baked potato, and steamed green beans:

I'm in no way an expert on foods and measuring everything, but for the most part I was able to measure approximate serving sizes. As far as my methods of cooking the pork I seared it on both sides using about half a tablespoon of canola oil then added water to let it steam itself. After placing all my info into my food journal on the calorie count website I figured out that my dinner was 346 calories not too bad I guess. I sure as hell am not starving after a meal lol.

Today's super exercise of the day is: SITUPS.  I have to admit the first time I ever contemplated doing one, I thought there was ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I could complete the task.  I want to cry just thinking about having to do them, but I go out of my way to add in the situps to my daily workouts. 30 situps to be exact. I was able to break my husband away from his Call of Duty for a whole minute to demonstrate the situp. lol. Here it is:

As you can see he has lovely form. I'm sure I don't look as graceful sitting up but nevertheless I TRY and accomplish it. I don't always give myself enough credit for my mini victories. Today, as my husband was getting ready to hold my feet for situps, I began to complain about how much I hated them. The complaining stopped after he made a quite logical statement that had never occurred to me. He said "remember when you thought you couldn't even do one? Now you do thirty." Its amazing the things we can accomplish when we just look beyond the physical and dig deep into our inner strength.

While doing my dumbbells presses I noticed another couple a few benches away. They were your typical all American beautiful couple. He was tall, tanned and ripped and she had a beautiful, toned body with a perfectly flat stomach.  I always tend to feel a little self-conscious around people like that but today I did my thing; pressing my dumbbells at 32.5 lbs each since someone had taken the 30 pounders.  Anyhow, the beautiful, toned lady happen to notice that I was pressing more then her. Naturally, in true competitive spirit, she went for the 30 pounds the next set. It just didn't happen for her. lol. In no way am I implying that I was excited for her failure. However, I was proud of myself. I'm sure she saw me and thought that there was no way that I could possibly be better at something with my over-60-pounds-overweight-squishy body.

I didn't let it phase me. I kept my game face on but inside a big hairy caveman was beating his chest as he yelled at the top of his lunges in celebration of victory! So I guess the lesson of the day is NEVER underestimate yourself! You're just as good if not BETTER then anybody else out there! Happy Workouts for all!

The New Plan

All my life I've been on some kind of diet. I remember being in the sixth grade and being on a diet. The word DIET...ugh its sickening. I've tried every single diet out there. My favorite up until a few years ago was the ZERO carbohydrate diet. Needless to say I just can't bring myself to do it anymore.
With my new journey I'm moving back to the basics of eating and exercising. You dont have to be a body builder or model to look good. With a little basic education anyone can be fit and healthy. Its my mission to live my life based on this motto.
So to begin with, my diet consists pretty much of TWO basic rules:
1. I eat everything whole grain and or whole wheat.
2. I eat everything according to SERVING SIZE.
My workout plan:

Ultimately my goal is to workout EVERY day but I can deal with myself if I at least workout every other day. The reason for this is I bought a book called The Women's Health Big Book of ExercisesThis book is absolutely my workout bible! It has all sorts of great info for people at all fitness levels. The best part of it is at the end where there are several workouts you can follow on your own at the gym. It was only fitting that I chose the "Get Your Body Back Workout." lol.

This workout consists of three phases in which you slowly build your body into shape. I love that it has every picture of every workout and that it started me off slowly. Currently, I'm in phase 2. As I have progressed into phase 2 I've found that the workouts are pretty intense. At the end of workouts sometimes I find myself feeling emotional. Not because I'm tired but because I can actually complete the workout fully. Tears of joy. Lol. Gaining weight has torn my self-esteem apart. At the end of each hard workout I am reminded that I AM WORTHY regardless of my size.
 The goal for now is to complete this phase of workout. I started it last Monday, November 24th. By December 22 I should have completed the full four weeks of phase 2 and be headed to the final phase. The great part of this blog is that if I can keep up with it daily I can keep up with my workouts and update the world...lol Well at least anyone who happens to come across my little blog...