I'm cheating right now. I am eating a Jolly Rancher and just had a StarBurst. It's so lame to feel bad about two pieces of candy. I guess I also had a few (8 M&M's) this morning, oops. I guess the solution to this is to bring more healthy, high protein snacks to work. I logged my food in to caloriecount.com today. I have been eating a lot more carbs than I thought. It was half of my daily calories! And I thought I was being good! The main culprit was the brown rice I had for lunch. I don't really know what to eat if I'm not eating carbs. I grew up where there was carbs every night, a big plate full, spaghetti, rice, buns. I need to get creative to think of things to replace these staples. I read about using egg plant slices as the bread in a sandwich. This sounds really gross to me, but might work for someone else.

For dinner I'm planning a salad and a grilled chicken breast. I'm also planning on skipping my Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich tonight.

As for exercise this morning I woke up early and tried to get my dog to go on a walk. I didn't consider running because my legs need some recovery time. However, my dog was very lazy and wouldn't get out of bed. So instead I had a good stretch session and then did some step touches while watching TV for 15 minutes. This wasn't much exercise but hopefully it got my metabolism moving a little bit. After work today I am heading to the gym to do my circuit training class. I will be burning a lot of calories in this class (at least that's what the instructor says). The rest of my exercise today will come from cleaning up my house. I was just informed last night at 10pm that we were having guests on Thursday night… thanks for the warning. So I will be vacuuming, scrubbing, bending, lifting and going up and down stairs for an hour or so tonight.

Results After Day 1

Last night I made brown rice and steamed veggies for dinner (onions, broccoli, green and red peppers). This was pretty bland but it filled me up pretty well. I didn't measure my rice but I think it was about ¾ cup, and probably 1 cup veggies. I'm used to making stir fries like this but I generally use white rice and have some sort of sauce on my veggies. The brown rice seemed to take longer to cook and was a little crunchier (I should have cooked it a bit longer, but after 30 minutes I was hungry). Sauce would have made the meal delicious, but most sauces contain a lot of sodium. Since I am staying away from salt this week I skipped the sauce. As my meal was cooking I also did some snacking. I at a Mini Babybel and some Quaker caramel rice crisp bites. I probably had 10 rice bites, which added more carbs, but I didn't go crazy. After dinner I wanted to wait some before working out. I put in a movie and decided that I would also have my reward snack, a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich. It was good, not as good a regular ice cream sandwich, but still more exciting than anything else I ate during the day. The sandwich is just a little dryer than a regular ice cream sandwich, the ice cream is pretty tasty though.

After the movie I went to the gym to run 4 miles. I did the first 2 miles without stopping and then I added in 1 minute walk intervals. I don't know it was because my legs were sore from running the day before or if I was low on energy, but the 4 miles was a lot harder than in the past. I will have to make sure I eat a few more carbs before my next 4+ mile run this week.

After my not so easy run I went into the locker room to weigh myself. I took off my shoes and then I only had light running gear on (socks, running tank top, lightweight shorts, and a t shirt) I weighed 138.3. I then took of my t-shirt and weighed it, it weighed .1. So I'm thinking that I probably weighed 138 exactly without the gear. On Saturday when I weighed myself at the gym I was 138.7 with just a towel. So this is progress on the first day! Always helps with motivation.

Before I left the gym I bought my boyfriend a smoothie since I snapped at him before I left for the gym. He was happy to see the smoothie! I think after my next evening workout I will get a smoothie too even though they have 20-35 grams of carbs. With cardio this seems to be something you need.

Success on day one, let's see how tomorrow goes.

Attempt to Lose 5lbs in One Week

I know it's said to be unhealthy to lose more than 1-2 pounds a week, but I am going to try and lose 5 pounds in one week.

I am not going to starve myself, and I hope not to do anything unhealthy or dangerous. In this blog I'm going to let you know what I do and I'll give you the results.

I am a 5'5" 25 year old female. At the beginning of my fitness and weight loss journey I weighed 145. At this weight I was considered healthy. I didn't look bad, I just wanted to become more fit and fit in my clothes again after a couple of years of putting nutrition and exercise on the back burner. My goal weight is 125. This is how much I weighted at age 18. I also obtained this weight at age 21 after working out and reducing calories for a few months. After starting my first office job pounds started coming on little by little. So little that I didn't even notice, until my 125 turned into 145. So here I am today, 25 years old, my metabolism isn't quite the same as when I was 18 (it's not bad, but just not the same). What I really want to get across here is that 145 is not a bad weight! Anyone who is 145, should not feel compelled to lose weight, it's just my goal.

A friend of mine got engaged on New Year's Eve this year. She wanted to start getting into shape before her wedding Summer 2012, so we have lots of time). I told her to join our local gym where we could be workout buddies. We started attending a group fitness class once a week. This class focuses on circuit training. We use hand weights and a step and various other tools (body bar, fitness bands, medicine balls, exercise balls. The class happens once a week for 45 minutes. For the first few classes we attended we would be sore for 2-3 days after the workout! It was hard to think about working out when you feel so sore. I would end up going to the gym one other time besides the day of our class. I was not seeing any results besides my soreness. 2 days a week felt like an accomplishment since the month before I went to the gym 0 times.

One day while we were "ellipticaling," I suggested we do a race of some sort. Her wedding in summer 2012 is a very long term goal and I was feeling that it wasn't going to be enough to keep us motivated. And when focusing on how you will look on your wedding day can almost put a stress in your workout that is un-motivating. She said she would think about it. I finally convinced her and we signed up for a 10k (6.1m) in the beginning of February. She found a training plan online. She Googled "10k training plan" and the first thing that came up was… 10-k training: Novice by Hal Higdon. She said it was an easy enough looking plan and there was a picture of an old guy on the page. Sure enough I went home and Googled "10k training plan" and that is what came up. It consisted of funning 3 days a week, 2 cross training days, one stretch and strength day, and a rest day. We arranged the schedule so that Tuesday's was stretch and strength so it would coincide with our circuit training class. We also adjusted the length of the program to 11 weeks instead of 8. I just kept the 7^th week for the 9^th and 10^th, and kept the last week the same as it was in the plan (it has two rest days!) The running days started out with 2-3 mile runs and the cross training days 30 minutes or so. We had already been working out for a month and we thought we were getting into shape! Once starting this program 2-3 miles was still very hard to do.

At first I didn't really have any plans on changing my diet. I figured it I was working out more why would I need to change what I ate. I soon realized that I needed to track my calories so I could at least understand why I was or wasn't losing weight. I started using calorie count.com. I try to stay on a 1300 calories per day. I never achieve this goal, but I try. I am more around 1500-1800 per day, some days are better some days are worse. I didn't do this to a science but it was nice to be able to see how many calories were in the things I ate. Now I realize something's just aren't worth eating because of the calories. It also tracks how much vitamins and other nutritional daily values. So even if you only eat 1,500 calories in a day, if they are all from donuts you will still not have a good day (they base it on a grade, that day would probably be a F). IT also graphs your calorie input vs. output (exercise) It's nice to see when your output is higher than your input. You will be sure to notice some weight loss if you continue this. I would sometimes cheat and not log things into caloriecount.com. Which is silly because it is only really cheating myself. I still ate the calories. This is a great tool and I think it really helped me be more conscious of what I ate. I don't log as much anymore because it takes a little time and it distracts me from work. But I recommend it 100%. It does a lot of cool things that I'll blog about later.

So by staying on top of my training plan and counting calories I have been steadily losing .5-1 pound a week. I am on week 10 of my plan and I am at 138 (started at 145). This is pretty good! I look and feel better.

Week 8 of the plan I was hosting a bridal shower and my whole plan got derailed I missed a couple workouts (which I rarely did or made up on my rest day). I also ate about a whole pan of rice crispy bars during the shower. Not a big deal, I did not want this program to limit what I eat. None the less it was not helping my overall goal by missing workouts and eating a whole pan of anything. So I was ready to get abck to work the next week… until I came down with a really gross sinus cold thing. I was going to continue going to the gym, but I called my boyfriend and he said I shouldn't. It didn't take much convincing and I was at home on the couch. So I missed another 3 days of training. Since this is near the end of my training plan the runs have also become a lot longer. So I missed a 6 mile run. I was pretty terrified that getting back in to the grove of things was going to be really hard. I don't know the factoid, but you start to lose muscle and fitness pretty fast once you become inactive.

There also seems to be a lot of contradicting information about working out when sick, some say yes, some say definitely no. some say depends on where you feel sick… So when I was still feeling sick with a sinus something I went to a spin class and it actually made me feel a little better. My cycling neighbor probably thought I was gross because I kept coughing. I probably shouldn't have went to a group class, but it did make me feel better.

Anyway, next weekend is Easter and I would like to lose 5lbs to make up for my 2 bad weeks and just too feel comfortable in whatever I'm wearing. Not sure if it's possible, and if I only lose my regular .5 or 1 pound that will be ok too.

But Here is my plan. 2 workouts a day, lower carbs and more protein, lots of veggies, water and green tea.

I went to the grocery store and bought supplies, lots of veggies, some Oscar Myers rotisserie carved chicken (located in sandwich meat area) eggs, cottage cheese, Yoplait greek yogurt, baby bell cheese. I also bought a package of skinny cow ice cream sandwiches. I figured these would be my reward if I do good each day. It's a total cheat, on the no carbs, but at least it's a planned cheat.

For breakfast I had two hardboiled eggs with pepper. I've read salt is bad! Reduce your salt and it will help you eliminate water… I think. So no salt on the eggs.

For lunch I pack a salad with snow peas, spinach, celery, red peppers, chicken and some yogurt dressing I had. Oh yeah, I also packed some croutons. Probably against the diet, but it's not going to kill me. For snacks at lunch I packed half cup of cottage cheese (which I ate at 10am) and a greek yogurt. I heard protein is supposed to make you feel more full than carbs so hopefully these are good snacks.

I also bought some Yogi Blueberry Slim Life green tea. It's supposed to be a natural herbal appetite suppressant. So I am on my second mug of that now (11:30) I've been reading about green tea and weight loss too. I'll blog more about that later too.

I'm feeling pretty good so far. I get hungry because I obsess on my next snack. So writing this probably isn't helping. I also have to go to the bathroom because they say you should be drinking lots of water to help get rid of stored up water.

For dinner tonight I am planning on doing some steamed veggies and brown rice. I know there are lots of carbs in brown rice, but it is much healthier than white rice. I think I will do a half a cup of brown rice with lots of veggies! The veggies should make me feel more full. We will see how that goes. I will save the other rice for lunch tomorrow.

I am planning on weighing myself every evening at the gym. Every morning at home. My scale at home is hard to get accurate reads, but they say its beset to weigh yourself in the morning. So I'll do it at home and then at the gym. I'll try to be consistent on the time of day and what I'm wearing.

For my workouts this morning I attempted to go on a 2-4 mile run with my dog. But he did not feel like running so we walked about a mile and half. It wasn't what I was expecting but whatever. Walking is better than nothing. After work I am planning on going to the gym to run 4 miles, which is what my plan says to do. I will let you know how that goes, since I am eating less carbs. If I feel dizzy or anything I will go and get something from the café at the gym. Like I said, I'm not trying to be dangerous here. I know carbs are important when doing lots of exercise.

I am also debating on getting a power shake after my run. Protein and fruit from the gym café. Fruits have lots of carbs, but they are healthy. Some plans for losing 5 pounds say eat fruit and some say don't. I would think fruits are the least of my worries compared to the temptations of chips, and other junk I eat from the vending machine when hungry at work.

This is day one. I will let you know how it goes and if I trip up!