Oh Sweet Jesus!

You ever wake up in the morning still tired and somewhat low on patience for no apparent reason??!! That was me this morning so the last thing I was wanting to do was workout. My son woke up at 4:15am crying and fussy, he's teething so all he really wants to do is sit on mommy's lap and cuddle, but he's also tired and doesn't want to lay down for a nap.....awesome! Then as I'm stretching and getting ready to start my challenge today, my daughter proceeds to build her wooden train track halfway through the area that I've cleared and she's getting frustrated because not all the pieces are lining up to her liking all while my dog is prancing around me asking to go outside and excited that I'm down on the floor....it's 9:45am................it's going to be a long day!!! By a little after 10am, I finally am able to start my workout that I've been trying to do for almost an hour!

I figured it was only appropriate to title this post as such because several times during this workout today all I could manage to say was "Oh sweet Jesus!" In between gasps for breathe I kept asking myself, "what have you gotten yourself into!" It was a 16 minute workout and I'm a sweaty, shaky mess. The goal for this one is to really push yourself because it's only four exercises and you have complete the circuit four times at max reps. So it's set up like this....I have a timer (a Gymboss) and I set it for 16 rounds for 50 secs with a 10 sec rest between each exercise. You do each of the exercises, as many as you can in the 50 seconds, the timer beeps, you get a 10 second rest and you start the next exercise for another 50 seconds. Again the timer beeps, you get a 10 second rest and you move onto the next exercise. You continue to do this for 16 minutes until the timer lets off a series of beeps to let you know that your routine is complete. I'll post the website with the video of all the exercises at the end of this post. The exercises were Dive Bomber Push ups (suck!), Sandbag Squat and Lunge Back (I don't have a sandbag so I used my blue band, put it around my wrists and pulled it apart as far as I could each time I lunged back, so I was still working arms and chest), Hanging knees (I also don't have a hanging bar, so I did the modified version that was shown on the website so I laid on my back and did leg lifts for the 50 seconds....these also sucked!) and the last exercise was called the 'snowboarder.'  (squat down, touch your fingers to the ground, jump and spin (all in one motion), squat down, touch your fingers to the ground, jump and spin, touch the ground...etc for 50 seconds). You get a 10 second rest between each exercise, but I swear there were times that the timer forgot to give it to me. I must've looked like it was horrible because half through my 3rd set of leg lifts my daughter brought me my bottle of water....gee thanks! If you want honesty, have a kid around!!

I had a friend ask me if I was 'dieting' while completing the exercises.....dieting, um not really. I really need to work on portion control so that was the second part of my challenge. I can't eat only what I call bird food (salads, granola, etc). I am a meat and potatoes kinda girl, you give me a choice between a nice steak with baked potato and some salad with tomatoes, avocados, etc, I will always take the steak! Don't get me wrong sometimes a nice big salad is exactly what I need so I eat them, but it's not my primary diet. I also enjoy Mountain Dew, cookies, chips, etc, you know: the good stuff!! So what I've done is limited myself to only drinking soda on the weekends and to limit the extra stuff as much as possible and to do that, I don't buy it at the grocery :( I know that if it's in the house, I'll eat it or drink it so I make them my little indulgences every once in a while and I REALLY look forward to those. With the soda my goal is to work to only drinking it every other weekend, etc. This doesn't mean that come Saturday morning I'm drinking strictly soda, no. That would defeat the purpose of all my hard work I just did during the week, so I'll have maybe one and I'll put it in a cup so that I don't drink an entire 20oz bottle which is really 2-2.5 servings! I cook three meals at home everyday (and that is a challenge in itself, trying to come up with new, healthy variations). I try to always cook 1-2 veggies with dinner and I rarely fry any food. So most things are baked and I try to purchase as many fresh items from the grocery as the budget will allow. Also, if for any reason, we do go through a drive thru, there is no more LG or Supersize for me and recently I've opted to even get a kids meal just so I'm not filling up on a bunch of junk food because I could put away some french fries. These food changes are things that I set or were already doing before I started my 90 day challenge. Just because they work for me doesn't mean that they will work for, or even appeal, to you. I'm not looking to weigh a certain amount or be in a certain size jeans, I'm just looking to feel better about myself. I'm six feet tall, I'm never going to weigh 110lbs....it's just not in the cards for me. After looking into a healthy range for a woman my height and age (28) it is 165-180lbs. I'm looking to hang somewhere in the 170 range. I don't get on the scale, I look in the mirror. If I like where I'm headed then I keep pushing the workouts, but I am terrible about instant gratification so I want to see results like, oh yesterday!!. So this challenge is more than just a workout challenge for me, it's a lifestyle challenge. So for you, you know yourself, so figure out a challenge that fits you and really get after it even if it's just to get out and go for a good walk every day. My goal when I started the blog was to be completely honest with my workouts and what I was doing. I'm not asking anyone to do this with me, just looking for an opportunity to get some added support and maybe even give some in return. Any mom (or stay at home dad!!) knows that being at home every day with only the kids to talk to sometimes you just need to talk to another adult so I'm hoping we can all get that here!! I think sometimes when my husband comes through the door at night I'm talking a million times a minute! Well, my son is telling me he's had enough time playing by himself.....duty calls!! Oh and here's the workout video from today

http://www.bodyrock.tv/2011/03/14/lose-yourself-workout/  if you scroll down there is a you tube video of her doing the entire workout!