Days 14 thru Day 20 :: 03/16 - 03/22

I did good this week.

Got up at 5:30 every other morning this week and went to the Rec Center to work out.
Followed the nutrition diet fairly well. Did have a few sweets due to birthday parties at work, will need to learn to pass those up.

Exercise this week - 7
Nutrition - 5

03/22 - Saturday - Today was scheduled for an upper body workout. I felt good when I got to the center, so I thought I would do a little treadmill just to warm up. I actually ended up doing 16 minutes on the treadmill. Started very slowly at a 2.8mph speed and increased about .3 every minute. When I reached 4.5, I realized that I could probably do a full minute at 5.0mph, so I did. I then of course had to slow back down to the 3.2 and walk for about 2 to 3 minutes to get my breath back again. But, overall, it felt good. I am thinking I should push myself to 5.0mph on each aerobic workout day. After 16 minutes on the treadmill, I then did an abreviated version of my upper body workout.

03/21 - Friday -Aerobic Workout - Did a 20 minutes workout on the treadmill began at 2.8 mph and moved up .2 to .3 mph each minutes, then dropped back down to 3.2 and back up to a max of 4.5 mph.

03/20 - Thursday - Lower Body workout - used the machines and stuck to the plan fairly well.

03/19 - Wednesday - Aerobic Workout - Treadmill 20 minutes

03/18 - Tuesday - Upper Body - free weights mostly, used one machine for triceps

03/17 - Monday - Aerobic Workout - Treadmill 20 minutes, begin at 2.8 mph and max at 4.5 mph. - Good workout, felt like I pushed myself hard.

03/16 - Sunday - Rec Center is not open so could not go workout. Just did some walking around the neighborhood.

Day 13 - Saturday - Free Day!

Had a GREAT Day today - This is the way I wish I could spend every Free day. Headed to the Hill Country - Fredericksburg for the Peddler Arts and Crafts Show with my daughter-in-law, Kaye. Went through Johnson City, drove by Kaye's old home where she grew up. Then down 290 toward Fredericksburg. Wouldn't you know it, there were some wineries along the way. That was quite enjoyable taste testing all the wines. I think we made it to four wineries before we made it to the Peddler show. The show was OK - then we made it by 2 more wineries as we headed out of town. Cooper's BBQ in Llano was quite tasty for (lunch?). Sorry about you missing your Saturday night party, Kaye.

Day 12 -

Well, - I missed my workout today. Should have been a lower body workout.
Just couldn't get up at 5:30 this morning.
I did still watch my eating, did not do too badly on that.

Nutrition - 7
Exercise - 0

Day 11 - Aerobic Training

Today my 22 minutes on the treadmill brought 1.32 miles. I have not reached the speed level or duration at a higher speed that I would like to. The faster I can get my speed and maintain it longer the distance will increase as well. That might be a good measuring tool. I do enjoy walking and want to work up to being able to jog for a continued amount of time. That will benefit me when I go hashing with the kids. They will not have to lag behind to stay with me. I hope to be able some day to run most of the trail with them. I have a lot of goals, but just not achieving them as fast as I would like to. I know that I am only a week and a half into my training, but I am a very impatient person. I want to see measurable increases right away! I do not plan on giving up on this program. I hope to make it a way of life always. I know I already feel better with more energy, I have to assume it only gets better from here. I am actually almost looking forward to my next workout.
My nutrition today was not too good. I had fried chicken for lunch. I was so full from that I did not even think about my afternoon snack, so I did not eat again until dinner and still not much. Not the way to keep your metabolism on a steady level. I'll do better tomorrow.

Nutrition: 6
Exercise: 8

Day 10 - Upper Body Workout

Getting up in the mornings is getting easier. I was almost looking forward to this morning's workout. I took my plan with me and pretty well followed it. I wrote down each of my weights and should be able to plan a little better. A lady at the center saw me with the exercise sheets and my log and asked if I had a personal trainer. I told her yes, it was my son. Maybe I looked like I was doing something right. I still don't think I am pushing myself hard enough, but at least that way I am still looking forward to my next workout.
I do not feel sore at all today, guess I'll wait and see how I feel tomorrow. If my arms do not get sore, then I know I should push myself a little harder next time.

Nutrition: 8
Exercise: 9

Day 9 - Aerobic Workout

Up at 5:40am. A little difficult to get up this morning, but I made it. Found out that I should not stay up late if I plan to continue getting up at 5:30am. That makes it very difficult, I just did not want to give up just yet. I know if I don't work out in the morning, I will not get it done. I experimented with a few speeds this morning, but did not want to push myself too hard and get burned out. The workout felt good.

Nutrition: 8
Exercise: 9

Day 8 - Lower Body

Back to the normal routine of up at 5:30am. Even harder today since we just went back on daylight savings time. I was sure it must be the middle of the night when the alarm went off. However, I had done so well last week, that I wanted to keep it up. Besides that, Kevin is coming by to weigh tonight. So off to the rec center. I had set up a fairly hard lower body workout for today. I was feeling good and thought I might could even reach higher. Now I think I should stick with the plan and not push too hard although I do not feel sore right now.

Weight - 165
Body Fat - 40.3

Nutrition: 8
Exercise: 8

Day 7 - Aerobic

This morning I slept in until 8:15am - what a luxury! As I stretched when I was waking up I realized that I felt really good. This morning I was at my sister's house in Corpus and she actually has a treadmill. That was great so I was able to do my 20 minute aerobic workout before getting on with my day. I had taken some Myoplex shakes and bars with me, so I had a shake after my workout. I went back by the nursing home and visited with mom again until about 1:30pm. I had brought cottage cheese, pineapple, and yogart with me, so I had that for lunch before starting my drive back to Georgetown. I also had bottles of water with me which I drank during the day. When I arrived home, my husband, Lee had dinner ready for me. That was perfect. He just fixed the main dish and I had rice to go with the small piece of steak. This is getting to be a routine that is not too difficult to follow. I think I am actually starting to enjoy it. Now if I can get my son, Kevin back on track this BFL thing may just work for both of us.

Nutrition: 9
Exercise: 10

Day 6 - Saturday - FREE DAY

Although this was my free day, I got so use to getting up at 5:30am, that I woke up at that time. Since I had to drive to Corpus Christi today, I decided to go ahead and get up at that time. I was on the road by 7:00am. Visited my Mom at Wooldridge Nursing Home in Corpus. She was very alert today. We actually carried on somewhat of a conversation. She called me by name two or three times and even said "I love you KK". This was great because sometimes with her alzheimers, she does not even know me. I played some czech music recording for her and she even translated a few phrases. She said she wish that us kids could understand what they are saying. It was a really good visit.

Nutrition - even though it was my free day, I only ate a Whataburger BOB this morning and then ate Jamie's chicken and dressing with a salad in the afternoon with 2 cookies for dessert. (Oh, yes - I did have one margarita at the Home Interior Bingo party). I actually did not get extra hungry today or go crazy with real fattening foods.

I think it was a good FREE day.

Day 5 - Upper Body

When the alarm went off this morning at 5:30am, I really did not feel like getting up. I came very close to rolling over and going back to sleep. But then I did not want to disappoint my son. So I managed to get up and head for the rec center. I had planned my workout last night, but forgot it at home this morning. I decided to just check out what machines were at the center for upper body. I knew basically that I should do 5-6 sets of reps, decreasing the number of reps and increasing the weight each time. I found machines that had the muscle group on them that the machine worked. I was not sure what weight to start but went up in weight for each set of reps. This took more time between reps than 1 minute and even though I increased the weight, I did not feel like I got a real good workout. I will go back to the dumbbell weight lifting that I had originally set up. The machines do not seem to be as good for me to get a good workout. I think I need to go to the center sometime when I am not on my scheduled workout to determine what a workout routine would be on the machines. I am sure there is a good way to use them, I just haven't figured it out yet.

Nutrition: 7

Exercise: 6

Day 4 - Aerobic

Today was treadmill day again. I lowered my speed along the way, but I am still trying to determine what speed represents my intensity levels. I used 4.5 today as my high point and for right now I think that is right. I just got a little confused when I would drop back down and moving back up to maintain the same speed for each intensity level. I think I just about have it figured out. I know now why Kevin said - don't worry about it, you will figure it out. It is all beginning to make sense to me and I understand more about how the weights or speeds relate to the intensity level of the workout. The 20 minutes really does just seem to fly by. I keep thinking that I am not doing enough of a workout. I think that probably means that I am not pushing myself hard enough. My soreness in my arms and back are subsiding some now. For a while I thought that I would not be able to do my upper body again on the scheduled day, but now I feel like I might be able to do it tomorrow.

Nutrition Level:

Exercise Effort: 9

Day 3 - Lower Body Workout

Sure am glad today is lower body because my arms are really sore from Monday's upper body workout. Only 5 minutes late on my start time this morning. The Rec Center has most of the machines I needed for the lower body muscle group. Still a little bit delayed between exercises trying to figure out the weights to use, but overall I did OK. For my high point on hamstrings I tried to do dumbell lunges and found that my knees are weak and this exercise really hurt my knees. Had to do straight-leg deadlifts, used 10 lb. weights and that worked fairly well. I will continue to adjust my weights because overall my lower body is strong and I think I can handle more weight than I did this morning. Looking forward to Thursday - only 20 minutes - Yea!

Today's Nutrition Effort: 8
Exercise Effort: 8

Day 2 -- Still going

Managed to get up at 5:30 am again and off to the Rec Center. The treadmill was my choice to do the 20 minute aerobic workout. I had walked on the treadmill many times before always walking for 30 minutes to an hour. However, this was totally different. While following the "walking" pace that Kevin had helped me plan, the 20 minutes were a definite workout and went by very quickly.
I started my walk at 2.5 mph for two minutes, then bumped the speed up .5 mph every minute. At 4.0 mph I was at a fairly good jog, and at 4.5 mph I could not complete the minute. I quickly realized I was not quite in good enough shape to keep this pace just yet. I had to modify my speed a bit away from the original plan. I could not believe that after just 20 minutes I felt like I really had a workout. Sure beats walking around a track for an hour!
Nutrition wise I did fairly good and it would have been much better if it had not been for that slice of banana cream cake I could not resist at the office meet-and-greet party. Other than that, I did watch my portion size on the meals although not able to follow exact recipes yet. For right now I am just using food we have at the house and adding the Myoplex shakes for the smaller of the six meals.

Today's Nutrition Effort: 6
Exercise Effort: 9

Day 1 - The Beginning

I had actually planned on beginning my 12-week journey on the Body-for-Life plan earlier, but the flu set me back over a week. Now here I am actually getting started on something that I have always known is a good thing, but there is a lot of difference between knowing and actually doing. Without all the encouragement from a great son, I would probably still be procrastinating. Kevin helped me set up my exercise routine which you can view by clicking on the picture on the right. He also set up this blog for me so he and Trish (and my brothers, sisters, and friends) can check up on me and make sure I stick with the program. There is also a link to Kevin's blog on this page and I am sure that Trish will be joining in the quest very soon.

My first day actually went quite well except for the fact that I was not sure if I was doing all the free weight exercises correctly. I followed my plan the best I could and actually had a fairly tough workout. I was a little confused about the concept of working out all the different muscle groups, but I would have to give me an A for effort. I can certainly tell today that I found some muscles that haven't been used in quite a while. I felt good after I finished with my workout although getting up at 5:30 am is pretty tough. The Rec Center does not open until 6:00 am, so I have to be there right when it opens to do my 45 minute workout, then home to get ready and make it to work on time.

I did fairly well on the nutrition side of the plan as well. I did do the 6 meals during the day, but don't think I drank enough water. The Myoplex Lite shakes and nutrition bars are delicious. I will have to be careful not to eat too many bars because they taste like a candy bar which is great because I do love sweets. That will be the hardest thing for me is not eating all the candy, cakes, and other sweets I love. But, I just have to stay focused on my goal to be the most fit 50----(something) year old mom that I can be so I can enjoy going to hashes and other activities with the kids. Please check back often to see how I am doing and post a comment for me.

Today's Nutrition Effort: 7
Exercise Effort: 6

Starting Levels:
Weight: 167
Body Fat: 42.9%
Dress/Pant Size: 12 (snug)