Quick Update!

I don't have much time, but I wanted to share the results of my progress report! It's been a little over two months, and here's the tally so far:

I've lost 14 lbs, 7" from my waist, 5" from my hips, 1.5" from each thigh, 1" from calves and from forearms, and 1.5" from biceps. I can see and feel muscles instead of fluff, and I can make it through an entire workout without puking! That's an hour of intense weight and cardio training!! I'm up to 3 days a week at the studio, and I'm walking/running at least 2 additional days per week to try and prepare for the Turkey Trot 5K on Thanksgiving, and the Armadillo Dash 5K in March. My goal is to be able to run the 5K in March.

This crap is hard, but it works!

Still around...

It's amazing to me how life gets so busy sometimes! So much has been going on, and while I normally get to work about an hour early on Mondays and Wednesdays, there hasn't been much time to devote to updating my poor little blog!
Things are going really well - I'm still working out on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and I've added a third day - Fridays are my "Power and Peace" class days. I thought it would be more of a struggle to get up and be there at 6 a.m., but two weeks in, it hasn't been so difficult. The real incentive has been the "Peace" part - 30 minutes of yoga. I've never done a yoga class before, just a few dvd workouts and my Yoga for Dummies video, so I'm enjoying this class immensely! We'll have a full hour of yoga this Friday because Sharon's going to be out of town, and I'm excited about it!
The eating clean thing is going rather well. It's tough towards the end of the pay period when you get down to eggs, bread, and peanut butter, but I've figured out how to be creative and stretch those groceries - and make some decent-tasting meals! I made a soup last night that really surprised me - and April said she liked it, so... It's awesome what you can do with a can of crushed tomatoes, an onion, and some garlic, haha!
I've signed up to do the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving day with the Fleming Clan in Houston! KK and I are going to walk/jog the 5K while the rest of the hardcore athletes knock out the 10K. I'm really excited about it and have started my "training" sessions with my favorite running buddy - Sabrah!
It's been 7 weeks since I decided to kick my butt into shape, so I've re-measured and weighed and all that torturous stuff. Here are my losses to date:

I have lost:
1" from my calves
.5" from my thigh (but have increased the muscle substantially from all the lunges we do!)
3.5" from my hips
1" from my bicep
1" from my forearm
-AND-
6" - that's SIX INCHES from my waist!!!!!

Weight-wise, I'm almost 11 lbs down. Everything is starting to tone up and smooth down, I can feel muscles where I couldn't really feel them before, and Sharon says she is starting to see some definition in my arms. I'm feeling sooo good!

Changes...

I think something is wrong with me. I think I just signed myself up for a 6 a.m. workout with my trainer, followed by a 6:30 a.m. yoga session. Power and Peace, it's called. I don't know how powerful or peaceful I'll feel rolling out of the bed at 5 a.m., but I'm gonna go for it! It'll be on Friday mornings, which will give me 3 days in the studio per week, along with my Tuesday lesson on Tokio, and walking at least two days a week with my pups and friends. I'm so gonna be ready for this cruise in January!

I'm really starting to see results from all this hard work, though. I haven't lost a size, or even a considerable amount of weight yet (holding at -5lbs so far), but I feel great, my stamina and energy level is so much higher, and I'm stronger! As I build muscle, I know the pounds will start disappearing, but honestly, I can't wait to start seeing that huge number on the scale get smaller! I have lost the following:

1 inch from my calves

1/2 inch from my thigh

1 1/2 inch from my hips

2 1/4 inch from my waist

2 1/4 inch from my ribs

1 inch from my upper arm (bicep)

1 inch from my forearm

AND

5.4 lbs (and gaining so much muscle!!)

Please do not put these inches into the lost and found should you run across them. I do not want them back. :)

More details on the events of the past week coming soon, along with some pics of Julie and Kate's visit to TX last weekend. Here's a teaser...

Wow! What a week!

I thought I'd have some time to come back and actually compose a nice, long, detailed blog, but all I've had time for in the past week has been short little Twitter updates! It's been busy!! I'm so excited; Julie and Kate will be here on Friday for the weekend. And then I'm flying to GA next weekend to visit them! Kate doesn't know that I'm coming, so it's going to be so much fun surprising her when we pick her up from school. :)

We went to a show in Shreveport last weekend - and it was pretty rough. Audrey (my boss) caught a nasty stomach virus on Thursday, so she couldn't do much of anything on Friday. Ashley (our other employee) and I loaded the trailer and Audrey and I took off about 3 pm. We made it to the showgrounds about 8 and dropped the trailer off, went for some dinner, and checked ourselves into our beds at the hotel! It was soooo hot and humid on Saturday, and I did the bulk of the work since the boss was still feeling pretty yucky. Unloading the racks/bins/stuff from the trailer, setting up the tents, hammering stakes into the rock hard ground... By 3 pm, we were completely exhausted! We packed it up and went to the hotel and got showers and naps. By seven or so, we were feeling human again, so we went to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant - Posado's. Yummy. I had decided that Saturday would be my official "cheat night" and I was so excited about ordering a nice, greasy, deep fried chimichanga. The waitress came over and Audrey ordered, and I placed mine. We chatted for a while, and were happy to see our food come out so quickly! The waitress put my plate in front of me, and what was on it did not resemble chimichangas at all!! I looked at Audrey and asked, "did I order chimichangas?? Or did I say Chalupas??" She laughed and said "you said chalupas!" And they were fabulous - and not nearly as much of a cheat as I'd planned! Haha!

Packing up at the end of the show on Sunday was pretty strenuous, and I wore myself out, but what I noticed was that I wasn't nearly as exhausted as usual, and recovered much more quickly than before. All this hard work seems to be paying off!

I missed my training session on Monday morning. We didn't get home from Shreveport until Midnight, and I was sooo tired. Sharon understood, and I slept in, and then went to Mom's for KK's birthday party/Labor Day extravaganza! It was fun!! We grilled kabobs, goofed off, and watched some great episodes of Ghost Hunters!

Tuesday was okay, we unloaded the trailer and scrambled to get all the orders from over the weekend processed. I was planning to go watch Sarah ride Tokio since I couldn't afford to take a lesson this week, but traffic was insane on the way home! Apparently, power went out in parts of College Station, and traffic lights were being 4-way stops, and there was also a pretty bad wreck in the general vicinity. It took me 2 hours to get home from Hearne! (Usually a 30 minute drive!) I stayed home, cooked myself a little dinner, and spent some quality time with my couch, my dogs, and my tv!

My workout this morning was really great! I noticed while I was warming up on the elliptical that I was going faster than usual! And talking while going!! Sharon was excited about that as well. We worked hard in the 30 minutes - upper body, lower body, and lots of core-strengthening. I'm starting to enjoy the work now that it doesn't make me nauseous, haha!

I started keeping track of my food intake, weight, body measurements, and lots of other details on a website called fitday.com. It's fantastic! I highly recommend it. It gives you really cool pie charts (no, not baked goods - graphs and stuff), and just really is a great tool for monitoring your progress. I took measurements today and found that I've lost an inch from my waist and almost 2 inches from my hips!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is now time to go home. I'm soo hungry, and I have a new book with yummy recipes thanks to Sharon, so I'm going to see what I can concoct tonight. And then I'm going to sit down and watch So You Think You Can Dance. :)

A cool quote from my desk calendar:

"We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves." -Lynn Hall

Wow, it's been a busy week so far! And it'll only get busier...

I just booked my ticket to Georgia!! Woo hoo!! I'll leave on Friday the 18th and come back on Monday the 21st. I'm so excited! Can't wait to see Julie's house and Kate's school! Oh, and of course, Julie and Kate. :) I just wish my favorite Bro-in-law was gonna be around. Work stinks.

The weekend was good; KK and Gary came up on Saturday, and KK hung out at the barn with me while I rode Tokio. She took some good pics! I'll post a few soon. It was a good ride - I'm starting to put all the pieces together, but it's very difficult. My lesson last night was good, though, and I realized that I'd been trying to use entirely too much leg. Which I was really excited about because that means that I don't have to work quite as hard!

My workout this morning was great - worked upper body today, and will work lower body tomorrow. Sarah started with Sharon this morning, and I'm so excited to have someone I can compare stories of soreness with, haha!!

Gotta go to Barnes and Noble tonight to get my book for our family Beth Moore study - we're going to do the one about the Tabernacle (I can never remember the name, lol). I'm really excited about it.

Ok, have to go to work now. Longer and more detailed blog later!!

An Eat Clean Diet success story!

This particular story was extremely inspiring for me. She had many of the issues I face! Definitely motivating!!

Success Stories - Stacey Haley - The Eat-Clean Diet

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Friday!!

It's been a busy week, and I'm really excited that we don't have a show this weekend! Our schedule gets fairly frantic in September and October, so I'm going to enjoy my last weekend of relaxation for a while.

The last couple of days have been pretty good! I woke up yesterday morning and stretched and realized that my hamstrings felt like someone had beaten them with a crowbar! Sitting down isn't a problem, but trying to get out of a chair is a bit difficult. Now I know what those dead lifts are designed to do! Glutes are a bit sore today, but everything else feels okay!

I'm going to spend some quality time with the new man in my life this weekend - Tokio's Mom is out of town, so I'm going to be attempting to exercise him for her. It will be great for me to see if I can put together what we've been working on without my coach there to whisper "thumbs on top, carry your hands, sit on your pockets, shoulders back, chest up, more inside leg, make him look to the left (right), half halt, half halt..." :) See, I can do it!! KK is coming up on Saturday to do a photo shoot for us, so maybe we'll have some good shots to post.

I'm hoping to take Sabrah out to Lake Bryan this weekend with my friend Leslie for a lovely little jaunt. I ordered a neat book called "The Power of Positive Dog Training" and am looking forward to working with my pups, especially Sabrah, using the methods described in this book. We're hoping to start our agility classes in September provided that they mesh with my work schedule.

Off to finish up the afternoon here at work! Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to do a little blogging this weekend; otherwise look for another looong post on Monday!