She MUST be crazy, right?

Apparently people, I am. Crazy, that is. Insane. Seriously, out of my mind. Why, you might ask? Because I signed up for the Transformation Challenge again this year. Yep, I'm going back to 6:30 am workouts and killer trainers, journaling every bite that enters my mouth and drinking enough water to fill my kids' wading pool each day. I remember how hard it was last year. And when the alarm went off at 5 am last Monday, I thought to myself, "dear God, why did I do this again???" But as I was creeping down the stairs trying not to wake the family, sneaking out the front door and driving down to SLO in the pitch black of the pre-dawn hours, I remembered how good it felt at the end. How much better my body felt, how much improved my attitude was and how it changed my life.

So if it changed my life, why do I have to do it again? Apparently, I'm a slow learner. I let some of those changes fall off over time. I let myself become my own lowest priority after about six months. But I swear that I will not let that happen this time around.

If you want to refresh your memory on what the TC is all about, read my post from last year here. This year, EQ has added an element to the challenge that I am really excited about - they have teamed up with WW to help us with the food and nutrition side of things. We have a weekly WW meeting just a few doors down from EQ and I am looking forward to the accountability and support these meetings will provide.

So wish me luck. I am behind already on posting, but I'll try to put up a weekly update. If I have time, I'll do a week 1 and 2 summary later this week, then a week 3 wrapup this weekend.

Five Things and Nutrition & Fitness Update

Five things I am grateful for today:
1. casual work environment that allows shorts on a beautiful Friday
2. a beautiful Friday
3. my housecleaner coming today!
4. going to Ventura on Sunday to see my family
5. good friends

I haven't posted in a while and I wanted to give an update on where I am with my plans for fitness and nutrition.

I signed up for Weight Watchers with a friend. We weigh in on Wednesdays so I'll try to post my progress here each Wed. I am trying to journal in my EQ journal: 1. because they want us to continue to turn them in on Tuesdays starting 6/30. 2. because I still want to pay attention to fat, protein, carbs, etc. I just added columns for fiber and points.

As for exercise, I signed up for a boot camp package which includes meeting with the nutritionist four times over the next eight weeks and meeting with the sports psychologist four times over the next eight weeks. I am trying to hit boot camp 2-3 times a week, rock bottom 1-2 times a week and occasionally throwing in a strength session out on the floor with a friend or two.

I'm trying to get my cardio in 5-6 days a week. I'm shooting for a mix of running, RPM and Body Combat. Running is 2 miles a few times a week. I decided to drop out of TNT as I just don't have the time to commit to the fundraising right now and my bronchitis was taking longer to go away than I expected so I was missing some of the training sessions and already felt behind. I am doing the City to Sea half-marathon in October so I'll post my training progress here. I'll be training with the EQ team starting August 8th.

I think that's about it. I am still trying to get my before and after pics to post here. I'll be meeting with my trainer from before the TC to see how much stronger I am and what my measurements are. She measured in a lot more places than they did for the TC so we're both anxious to see how that turns out as well as how much more weight I can do on my various exercises, etc. I'll have to do a post-TC progress post here soon. Just gotta get all my data together.

Happy Friday everyone! I wish everyone an enjoyable weekend!!

Here we go again...

This morning I went back to boot camp at the gym. I know, I know, you thought I was done with all those insane early morning workouts. But to be perfectly honest, I missed them! I felt like I was floundering a little bit since the challenge. I was trying to go in and do weights on my own and then I would do my cardio. And while I felt pretty good about the cardio, I still knew I wasn't pushing myself enough and knew I needed to start taking some more classes so I would push myself even harder.

As for the strength training, my team and I had chatted about getting some group personal training sessions going, maybe go once a week for four sessions or something so we know what we're doing when we go in on our own. But in the meantime, I needed to have a plan. So I signed up for the post-TC package #1 which includes:
24 sessions of Boot Camp (MWF at 6:30)
4 sessions with the nutritionist
4 sessions with the sports psychologist

Last night I hit rock bottom for the first time in weeks and I thought I was going to die. And then this morning was my first morning back at boot camp. I knew going into it that it was going to just about kill me. For three reasons:
1. I haven't done boot camp in three weeks
2. I got about four hours of sleep last night so I was exhausted
3. It was Lauren's day. Nuff said.

And even though I have been running on the treadmill and lifting weights and doing the machines these past three weeks....it....kicked...my....butt. And my quads. And my hamstrings. And my biceps. And my triceps. And just about every other muscle you could think of. By the time we were done, all my muscles were twitching like I had a dozen nervous tics! But it felt good. I'm sore already, but it feels good.

Sick, isn't it? 4 months ago if you would have told me that I would have liked getting my hiney kicked like that, I would have asked for you to share a little of whatever you were smokin'.

Ah, it's good to be back!