Lizzie - Day 4 + Oatmeal and Laraballs!

Day 2 – Mon April 30:

Weight: 120.0

Exercise: I did Bob Harper’s Kettlebell – Sculpted Body workout (45 min) – first time doing this one, it was tough but I liked it!, 4 mi run (32:36)

Food: 1384 calories. 11.5% protein, 28.1% fat, 59.9% carbs

I had oatmeal, dates, leftover baba ghanouj with carrots, cranberry juice, coconut water, peanut butter, milk with my NanoGreens supplement (it has the antioxidant power of 10 fruits/veggies!), grapes, and quinoa tabbouleh salad with ½ a sweet potato for dinner, and a hard-boiled egg.

I wish I had taken a picture of the quinoa tabbouleh salad, it was so good, and pretty!

Day 3 – Tues May 1:

Weight: 118.5

Exercise: Jillian Michaels’ Killer Buns & Thighs DVD (~30min), 2.4 mi run (20:48)

Food: 1521 calories. 16.5% protein, 35.9% fat, 49.9% carbs

I had cranberry juice, coconut water, 1Tbsp peanut butter, oatmeal with added milk, 2 hard boiled eggs, pouch of tuna (I’ve been buying these at work lately to get my protein fix), orange, leftover quinoa tabbouleh salad, Larabar – chocolate chip cookie dough (ingredients are cashews, dates, chocolate chips, salt), tortilla chips with lentils and guacamole.

Day 4 – Wed May 2:

Weight: 118.5

Exercise: Jillian Michaels’ 6 Week 6 Pack DVD (30min)

Food: 1934 calories. 17.6% protein, 24.8% fat, 58.7% carbs.

I had oatmeal with milk, 16-20oz pineapple spinach juice (I bought it at the Tustin Farmers Market, first time there!), banana, orange, leftover curried chickpeas, several Pretzel Crisps, whole wheat tortilla with lentils, chicken, 2 eggs, and guacamole. Then I had part of a Trader Joe’s dark chocolate bar with toffee, walnuts, and pecans, and I told myself I’d have 2 squares (125 cal) and I ended up eating 6 squares. (375 cal) :(

I was right on target with my calorie goal until I had that chocolate. I need to find some small, individually wrapped dark chocolates! They may be unsustainable, but at least I can satisfy a chocolate craving and be able to stop. Or eat a couple of dates or my homemade Laraballs!

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Laraballs!

I took this idea from these two recipes:

http://thetableofpromise.blogspot.com/2010/10/almond-date-truffles.html

http://thischickcooks.net/2012/01/30/homemade-coconut-cream-pie-lara-bars-recipe/

All you do is run almonds, dates, shredded coconut (unsweetened), and coconut oil (optional) in the food processor and form them into balls. Then you have a sweet, natural 80 cal snack when you just want a little something. The dates make it super sweet! Just make sure to use “fresh” dates. The first time I tried to make this I used dates I had bought months prior and it just turned into a crumbly mess, and I ended up just spooning the mix over yogurt. This time I bought a fresh batch of dates and used them right away while they were still soft. You could also try experimenting and adding other dried fruits in there, other nuts, or cocoa powder to make new flavors.

Oatmeal!

I love homemade oatmeal! Lately I’ve been making a batch at the beginning of the week and it lasts me for 4 breakfasts. I use a cup of Sprouts’ 6 grain cereal (whole wheat, rye, oats, barley, sunflower, red wheat), 1 cup milk, 1.5-2 cups water, ¼ c dried cranberries (handful), 1/8 c raisins (small handful), and lots of cinnamon. It only takes 10-15 min to make, and I save the rest in a Tupperware and microwave my portion later with a little bit of extra milk. Each serving is only 140 calories and I really don’t want more than that, it’s so filling.

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I’ve read through most of Jillian Michaels’ “Making the Cut”, and while it is definitely useful, following her plan exactly would be expensive! The meal plan geared towards me (a “slow oxidizer”) has fish in almost every dinner meal and a lot of the moves in her workout plan involve gym equipment. I will very roughly try to follow the basic plan though. She recommends consuming the same number of calories as your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), which for me is 1350, so my goal is to consume no more than 1400 calories per day. I’ll try to use similar recipes and have the same intensity of workouts (30-45 min of circuit training, along with cardio).

I just discovered that Sprouts (my favorite grocery store!) has all the nutritional information online for all of their bulk bin items! Hooray! I can stop trying to discreetly take pictures of all their bin signs while I’m shopping…
Sprouts Farmers Market - Bulk Nutrition Info 

Ally - Day 2

I am coming into this challenge myself after having finished the Gold's Gym Challenge three weeks ago. The program was twelve weeks long and emphasized body transformation, although it was a little difficult participating in a competition where I couldn't really see my competitors and be able to compare my progress to someone else's. The kind of motivation that I like the most and that has been effective for me is competition, that is why I am very excited for this. I even spent part of last night making this poster calendar for us to record our weights daily so its a visible reminder to keep us accountable and see our progress.

My weight loss journey actually began when I moved back home in August 2010. I joined Golds Gym and started at a weight of 176.4. I've worked out with a couple of personal trainers, I started running and racing, I take classes at the gym, hike, and changed the way I view food. Since then up until the end of the Golds Gym challenge on April 9 for me, I got down to my lowest ever: 124.4. 



My heaviest: This picture was taken at our mom's graduation from getting her master's degree at CSU Long Beach in May 2010

Unfortunately though what started out as a few post-challenge rewards of foods I had been keeping away from turned into some binging and into more of an addict's relapse. I love food so much, but eating so much has become different now, I can feel the difference physically and it does not feel good to consume so much needlessly. I have learned from my weakness and I am not proud of undoing my hard work and going back up to 137 pounds in just three short weeks.

 I have yet to feel like I'm done losing weight and acheiving the body that I want for myself, and that is my goal for the next 9 weeks. It is hard to know exactly what the number will be on the scale where I will be happy, because I have never been this small and don't know what I would look like. I am going to try for 117, but more important to me is my body fat percentage. When I started I had a body fat percentage of 35%, and then at the beginning of 2012 it was 25%, and at the end of the Golds Gym Challenge I had brought it down to 20%. My goal is to reduce it to 15% body fat. Then I might also be able to see some ab definition, which is what I've been dying to see.

I'm going to keep my calories per day at around 1100-1200, run at least 20 miles per week, keep going to Golds Gym as much as I can, and record my food, sleep, water intake, exercise, and steps. I want to improve my times for 5k, 10k, mile, and compete in my first triathalon. I also want to be able to do things I've never been able to do before, like chin-ups and rock-wall climbing.

Today:

It is unusual for me but I did pull an all-nighter last night and had my last bit of snacking, so I didn't weigh myself in the morning. I started recording my calorie intake for the day after I began getting ready for school, although I didn't eat anything more until around noon.

I left the house at 5:45am to walk to the bus to get to my 8am class, stayed around for tap dancing at 1pm, then came back on the bus and walked back home. Around 6:30pm my Dad and I went for a 6.6 mile run in 1:11:49. It was my first time running in over a week, and the first half of the run was great, an awesome pace and felt fine, but the last two miles I started hurting and I needed to pee, so it ended up being more difficult than I anticipated. I had an apple and a ham and cheese sandwich while at school, snacked on kiwi and Kashi cereal at home, had some peanut butter post run, and made a delicious smoothie with frozen bluberries, oats, greek yogurt, milk, and whey protein to enjoy while I caught up on Biggest Loser. I need to make sure I finish the rest of the episodes now because I've got an amazing opportunity tomorrow night to be a seatfiller in the audience of the finale. So my mom and I will be going to that tomorrow, and I am super excited!

Calories: 956.5 Carbs: 145.5g Protein: 53.5g Fat: 22.5g Water: 126 oz Steps: 30,783

Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead

Today I watched a documentary called "Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead" on Hulu and I wanted to share. It's about this guy's personal story and how he had a pretty big gut and an autoimmune disease that was caused by his added weight. He decides to make a change for himself, starting with a 60 day juice fast as he drives across America to meet people and learn about their eating habits. Along the way he loses a huge amount of weight and gains so much energy from all the fruits and veggies he's taking in, and he also convinces a few others to try it. I liked that although he is definitely a big supporter of juice fasts/cleanses and suggests others do it too, the movie as a whole was more about getting yourself healthy and eating right overall.

The movie really makes me want to go juice a bunch of fruits and veggies! Bach has talked about wanting a juicer, but I always thought it was an unnecessary since I feel like you get more out of the food in its whole form. Some juicers keep all the pulp and rind and everything, but the act of grinding it down still reduces the amount of work your body naturally does and decreases the volume of your food, so you're more likely so to have higher calories. However, now that I've seen this movie, I can see the huge amount of fruits and veggies that get put into their juice, and I realize that I would never consume that many normally, and eating more fruits and veggies than normal can never be a bad thing. I eat healthy enough that I don't need a 10 Day Detox, which I don't think is truly healthy anyway, but if I drank homemade juice once a day or several times a week that would be awesome! (Plus since it seems like a great tool in this challenge!)

Watch while it's still on Hulu!

The movie's website http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

Lizzie - Day 1

I am coming into this challenge having just completed a goal over Lent – to give up sweets and lose 5 pounds, and I went from 125 to 120lb. I’m proud of myself for doing this, but I feel like I can keep going. My personal goal in the next 2 months is to lose the fat on my stomach and lose enough weight/gain enough muscle to be more toned overall, especially my abs and arms. I feel like I have a healthy sense of self so I know that I don't need to lose weight. However, I do have a BIG sweet tooth (hence giving up sweets for Lent) and I’m not the best at portion control either, especially with snacks/sweets and anything Bach cooks. I’ve been generally counting my calories for the last month or so, and I’ve been eating 1300-1700 cal per day, sometimes more, with an average of 12% protein, 28% fat, and 60% carbs. I love my carbs! My goal is to bring my ratio closer to 25% protein, 20% fat, and 55% carbs.

I plan on running at least 4 times a week and improving my 5k and 10k race times. At minimum I should always be able to take 20 min to run my smallest 2.5mi loop so there’s no excuse to not get in a run! I also have a bunch of exercise DVDS, including 6 Jillian Michaels DVDs and 2 Bob Harper kettlebell DVDs (which I have yet to try because the introductory DVD that came with the weights has been enough!). Once we decided to do the challenge I ordered Jillian Michaels’ book “Making the Cut”, which is a diet and exercise book for losing the last 10 pounds, and I’ll try to take as much from it as I can.

Oh, and I love reading the latest nutrition articles, trying new recipes, and of course eating, so I will definitely be talking about food a lot!

Today:

Morning: I had Kashi cinnamon harvest cereal with milk and a banana. During my break at work I did eat one chocolate Hostess donette, though it wasn’t too bad at 57 cal.

Lunch: I brought leftovers with me to work, which was curried chickpeas with rice, and an orange. When I got home from work Bach had just stir-fried chicken and eggs and was eating it in a pita, so I had a few bites.

Dinner: I had a deeeelicious burrito – it had red lentils, chicken, jack cheese, freshly made guacamole, and sour cream. The tortilla, cheese, and sour cream didn’t help the nutritional value but it was so good! First time having lentils in a burrito but it worked surprisingly well, they’re similar enough to beans.

 Calories: 1680 – higher than I’d like but overall a satisfying day for food. Protein: 21%, Fat: 23%, Carbs: 63%. (my ratios have a huge margin of error, but I’d like to think that I get the general idea)

Here's a photo of the original curried chickpeas. I cooked the chickpeas from scratch, but you could use a can and from there I just added tomato sauce, chopped onion, garlic, curry powder, and cilantro. I used Italian pasta sauce, so the dish was a little confused, but still good! I got this recipe here at the Budget Bytes blog - it's my new favorite place to look for recipes!

This is the burrito I had for dinner!

The Challenge Begins!

The three of us – Ally, Alicia, and I – have decided that we all want to lose some weight and become more fit and healthy, so we decided to make a friendly competition between us to push and motivate us to our goals. The competition starts today, Sunday April 29^th and will end on Sunday July 1^st (Ally’s birthday), so it is 9 weeks total. We all have different amounts of weight we want to lose, so we each set our own weight goal, and the one who reaches their goal or exceeds it the most will win. The winner will get a $100 gift card to go shopping for new clothes, paid for by the other two.

Initial weight:

Lizzie     5’1”        121.5lb

Ally         5’3”        137.4lb

Alicia      5’1”        166.6lb

Goal weight:

Lizzie     115lb

Ally         117lb

Alicia      145lb

Weight loss goal:

Lizzie     6.5lb

Ally         20.4lb

Alicia      21.6lb

During our journey we will be taking turns blogging about our progress, good or bad, to share our enthusiasm for striving to be healthy and fit and to keep ourselves accountable. We’ll also share the delicious food we’re eating, recipes, interesting links, helpful tips, and words of motivation that we come across. We are using this competition and blog as tools to push ourselves that final stretch to get ourselves in the best possible shape and reach our healthiest potential.