Shiny New Things!

On Friday I decided that I needed to change up my routine a bit.  While I enjoy the elliptical and walking, I have been doing some reading that weight training will help weight loss even more (well, kinda heard it from a lot of different places and really hadn't paid attention till now).  My fiancé would love to hear me say that out loud, and then try to drag me to the gym, but I really just don’t care for the gym.  I have a membership, and it renewed itself and I decided I will still keep it open in case I should want to go back during my weight loss journey, but right now I just hate going there.

Anyways, on Friday my friend and I went to 5 Below, which for those who have never heard or been to that store, it’s literally a store where everything is $5 or less.  It’s broken up into sections, and as I wandered into the sports section (a section I used to avoid like the plague), I found weights varying from 1lb to 8lbs, all for less than $5 apiece.  I grabbed 4 of them…Two in each 3lbs and 5lbs to do some light lifting at home.

Yesterday I pulled those weights out of the bag they still sat in, and had absolutely no idea how to actually use them correctly.  What exercise moves would be good?  Are they easy enough that I can do them at home without a trainer watching over me (protecting me from doing something stupid)?  How long should I do the exercises for, or how many reps?

As I felt the anxiety build up, I remembered something my Guild Leader told me…”there are Youtube Videos I can share”.  So, after taking a deep breath, I searched “Arm Exercises” on Youtube and came up with the following video.

At a little less than 10 minutes, I thought “sure, why not check this out?”   It does leave out warm ups and cool downs, and just goes to the exercises themselves, which is what I needed (I had stretched a little beforehand).  Using the 3lb weights, I followed along to learn the moves so I can do them a bit more.  I wasn’t quite able to keep up, but I figured for my first time following the video was more about learning the steps more so than anything else.  I will have to work up to longer periods of time, and hopefully I won’t tire quite so quickly, but all I can today about these arm exercises is:

enough said

Today I am hurting, but I expected as much!  I do wish it burned more calories, but every little bit counts!

Food Diary for 7/7/13:
 

Roasted Potato Wedges with a sprinkle of Parmesan Cheese

9 pieces Crab sushi-286 calories

1 Tall Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte w/ no whipped cream-100 calories

1 cup Spaghetti Noodles-220 calories

¼ Cup Lean Ground Beef Spaghetti Sauce-29 calories

1 Slice Garlic Bread-140 calories

1 Serving Roasted Potato Wedges-292 calories

1 Fun size Reeses Peanut Butter Cup-80 calories

¾ cup watermelon cubes-35 calories

1 Dannon Light & Fit Greek Strawberry-80 calories

Total Calories: 1262

60 minutes Elliptical-532 calories

More calories burned every week so far!

Total NET Calories: 1262-532=730

I’m thinking I’m only going to eat back exercise calories if I need to.  I like knowing that there is more calorie deficit on workout days, and since I only do those big cardio days a few times a week, I don’t see it doing lasting damage to my metabolism, especially if I’m still meeting the 1200 calories for the day.  Plus it's also nice if I do want to eat something not quite on plan, I have a bit more cushion to do it.

Raiding Obesity

 So I worked my butt off against this boss this past week.  I didn't have the opportunity to work out as much as I normally do, since I couldn't do the elliptical on Sunday or Thursday, so I really tried to stay on point with counting my calories and getting some walking in when I could.

There was some slight "self-heals" after the Fourth of July and Saturday's episode with the super salty ham, but I am happy to say that today when I weighed myself, I am back down to 207.9, yay!

In order to make this section a bit more turn-by-turn, I've started weighing myself daily and tracking it in MyFitnessPal, so next week I'll lay it out like the turn-by-rurn play I wanted :)

3lb loss from last week!

 

Music Addition

Today’s Music Addition is Dance Again by Jennifer Lopez featuring Pitbull!

Enjoy!