BFL: Week 1 Complete

Okay so I'm going to have to admit I'm not sure I really should count this week as my first week of the challenge, but I'm going to anyway. I may not have done everything perfectly, or even close to perfectly, but I already feel a ton better because I'm thinking about what I'm eating and about being more active.

Food:
Overall I did extremely well with food this week. I used Tuesday (my cookie swap) as my free day and made the decision to eat well all day and just splurge a little during my swap. That splurge included only three cookies and then I took all the leftovers to work to get rid of them. The rest of the week I only slipped (purposely) a couple of times including eating a piece of my sopapilla cheesecake last night and a bowl of loaded baked potato soup (with bacon) on Friday night for dinner group.

It's amazing how even after only six days my eating habits are already beginning to change and when I go to eat cookie it just doesn't taste good or I don't want a second at least. And when I eat a meal, I really just want a small portion rather than to indulge.

Workouts:
Other than getting up with Afton on Monday morning I didn't do any of the planned BFL workouts. In fact the only other workouts I did were some intense volleyball on Monday and Wednesday night (2 hours each time).

Overall analysis:
I lost 3.5 lbs this week. And like I said before, this week already had me feeling much better without even including the workouts. So let's see how a week of workouts + good eating goes.

Next week's goal:
Complete at least 5 of the 6 workouts. I'd love to do all six but my cardio on Sat is probably not realistic since I have a vball tournament starting at 9AM.

Upper Body Workout 1

I got up at 6 this morning, drank some water, and got ready for my upper body workout with Afton. I walked out the door to go downstairs to meet her and realized I'd forgotten my keys. Richie wouldn't wake up so I went ahead with the workout and got keys from the front desk after. He still wasn't awake.

Overall the workout was fine, but I realized something. Not only am I weak physically, I'm weak mentally, which is probably why I quit things so easily. Trying to help me out - I really do appreciate it - Afton gave me a couple of pointers on my form. All of the pointers were useful and helped but inside I was annoyed and thinking, "I'm here aren't I. Just let me do this." That's a terrible way to think about things, but I tend to think about a lot of things that way too often. I'm not sure if it's pride or really just me being too sensitive about certain things, but it's another thing I'm going to work on during this challenge. I have to be able to take criticism, especially constructive criticism, or I'll never get anywhere in life. Because I'm not always or ever going to be perfect.

But I did it. Only like 6000 more upper body workouts to go. I thought about putting my actual workouts here, but I just don't think anyone cares. And this is more for me to write what I'm thinking and feeling as I go through the challenge. My way to keep motivating myself to keep moving forward. But in case you do care, here goes...

Chest - dumbbell flys + dumbbell press
Shoulders - military press + front raises
Back - Upright rows + Lat Pulldown
Triceps - Dips (killer by the way) + Tricep kickbacks
Biceps - Hammer Curls + Bicep Curls

Body for Life Challenge - Starting Out

I'm starting a 12-week Body for Life challenge with my friend Afton tomorrow. I'm really good at starting new things but never finishing them. I'm hoping that with Afton at my side AND Hawaii in the near future I'll be able to get through this one. People don't really want to read about my everyday triumphs and failures in the challenge so I'm going to track my progress here instead of my real blog. Starting with today - here are my goals for the challenge. I'll give a progress report at the end of week 1.

So here go my goals for my program:

1. Lose 10 lbs - if I didn't include this one, I would be lying.
2. Create and stick to a workout routine for 12 weeks.
3. Lose 2 inches from my chest and at least one from my waist.
4. Put on an outfit - any outfit in my closet - and feel good.
5. Fit easily into my size 4 jeans.