All posts in category Power

I <3 Weightlifting

I just realized after all of the craziness that last week brought, I forgot to do a “The New Rules of Lifting for Women” Phase 3 re-cap!  I also regret to inform, but have to admit, I totally had my fair share of Halloween candy yesterday.  I could count on both hands how many trick-or-treaters we got, and I am afraid I am going to have to freeze all of our leftover candy, and put it in the deepest depths of my deep freezer in the garage.  Hopefully I forget about it.

If you want to read a great article that will make you feel bad for eating Halloween Candy click here.  It was eye opening what sugar does to your body!

NROLFW Phase 3!

I loved this phase and think that it is the best thus far.  It focused a lot more on the upper body, which was a great switch up from Phase 2 which was mostly legs.  the problem I am finding with all of the phases is that when I have a full body move, like the squat and snatch, I can either work my legs really well or my arms, but never both.

The workouts were a lot quicker than phase 2 and found myself finishing up at around the 30 minute mark. Unfortunately, I found out that I missed a whole section of the workout!!!  At the end of Workout A there is a whole Body Matrix section with Squats/Jump Squats and Lunges/Split Jump Lunges.  I can’t believe I missed that part!

I have already decided that I am going to do the entire program over again once I have finished.  I would love to see how far I’ve come, and maybe by then I will be able to do a plank without having to modify it!

Onto Phase 4!  

Phase 4, Day 1, Workout A:

This is what Monday’s workout looked like (normally I would post pictures, but I have decided that I need to respect the authors of this book, and instead recommend going to Amazon and purchasing it for cheap!)

  • Front Squat Push Press: 3 sets of 10, 40 Pounds
  • Step Up: 3 Sets of 10, 35 Pounds
  • Dumbbell One-point Row: 3 Sets of 10, 30 Pounds
  • Static Lunge, Rear Foot Elevated: 3 Sets of 10, 22 Pound bar.  My legs finally feel like they are getting stronger, and my form is MUCH better than when I started the program!  I love seeing progress!
  • Push-ups: 3 Sets of 10, Bodyweight modified to knees.  The last phase didn’t have any push up reps, so I was excited to see them come back into the mix.
  • Plank:  3 sets of 60 second holds, modified to knees
  • Cable Horizontal Wood Chop:  3 Sets of 10, 50 Pounds
After taking the week off from weight lifting last week I was ready to get back to my home gym so that I could rip into Phase 4.  These last couple of months while doing this program I have found a love for weights!  I use to be a cardio girl all the way, but I am now finding that when you lift with a routine and combine certain moves you can get a sweaty workout while pumping some iron!
PS. I’m hoping to get in a spin class today so wish me luck with motivation!
PPS. Body Bugg got shipped yesterday and I should have it by Friday!!!
  • Which do you prefer: Cardio or Weightlifting?
  • What’s your favorite weightlifting move or cardio exercise?
10 Comments
by Shrinking Carrie on November 1, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Awesomeness, Body Bugg, Challenges, Indulgence, Power, The New Rules of Lifting for Women, Workout

Posted by Shrinking Carrie on November 1, 2011

http://shrinkingcarrie.com/2011/11/01/i-3-weightlifting/

Such a GREAT Day!

Sweat it Out:
Elliptical 35 minutes
Weights 45 minutes

This has been a GREAT day so I will just start from the beginning:

  • Started the day with a fabulous NROLFW weight lifting session, that my husband joined me on. Dustin has been working like crazy these last few months so when he gets a day off we try to pack as much as possible into the time we have to enjoy with each other.  My hub’s was very leery in the beginning of the workout because he thought all of the moves would be “girl exercise’s”.  I told him the tag line of the book was “lift like a MAN, look like a goddess”.  That’s right, these are MAN moves.  He was a good sport and got through the whole workout.  He said that he was even more impressed with me and my progress, now that he has gotten to do a workout with me.  He told me that his hamstrings are already sore and his abs will be feeling the burn tomorrow morning after the planks we did today!
  • After getting ready I went to my closet to find something to wear, and by chance put on a pair of jeans that I bought post-pregnancy as a motivator to start getting back in shape.  They are a size smaller than I was (at the time) and they were normally $80.  I bought them on sale for $20.  I put them on and they finally fit!  Then I tried on one of my smaller shirts that hasn’t fit in a couple of years, and it fit as well!  Holy crap!  I should have taken a picture (now I’m all comfy in my PJ’s so I’ll have to take a picture later)!
  • Old Navy is currently having a sale on all of their active wear.  I thought we should check it out since I am in dire need of new gym clothes.  I went in feeling hopeful, but defeated after holding up some of the compression pants and they didn’t seem to fit.  My husband FORCED me to take them to the dressing room.  Thinking of the disappointment I would feel after having such a fun morning, I reluctantly tried them on thinking that at least it would give me some motivation to keep going to the gym.  They slipped right on.  No, seriously, they fit, and they fit good.  I came out of the dressing room in shock and mouthed the words to my hub’s “they fit!” across the store.  I was excited, I felt good, and my husband had a look of pride for me on his face all day long.
  • This is what I’m talking about.  I am seeing the results of my hard work, and it only makes me want to work harder.  I also got some pretty cute new gym clothes that I get to wear to the “Rollin on the River 5k” tomorrow.  My foot is starting to feel a little better, so I think I will be doing an easy walk tomorrow, and I don’t plan on finishing in any set time.  I could possibly even be the last person, but I am there to support my friend and have fun with our group.
There is one other thing that I wanted to mention that I am excited about, but I think it deserves its own post so I will be giving it its own post on Sunday, but it is exciting for me and I hope you will all tune in!
What is something exciting that happened to you today?!
“The New Rules of Lifting for Women” Day 5, Phase 3, Workout A
  • One Armed Dumbell Snatch: 3 sets of 6, 20 pounds
  • Dumbell Single-leg Romanian Deadlift: 3 sets of 6, 30 pounds
  • Barbell Bent Over Row: 3 sets of 6, 40 Pounds
  • Dumbell single arm overhead squat: 3 sets of 6, 5/15 Pounds
  • Dumbell incline Bench Press: 3 Sets of 6, 40 pounds
  • Plank: 3 sets of 60 seconds
  • Horizontal Wood Chop: 3 sets of 6, 60 pounds
1 Comment
by Shrinking Carrie on October 14, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Dustin, Goals, Inspiration, Motivation, Power, Smile, The New Rules of Lifting for Women

Posted by Shrinking Carrie on October 14, 2011

http://shrinkingcarrie.com/2011/10/14/such-a-great-day/

Perfection Challenge: Day 6 Stat’s

Sweat it Out:
Elliptical 1 Hour

I woke up feeling back to normal from yesterday’s nausea.   Got a decent workout at the gym, although I didn’t feel up to my last weights session  phase 2 of “The New Rules of Lifting for Women”.  I will do the last workout on Friday and then do a recap of Phase 2 on Tuesday.

Made it until about 10:00 and then got nauseated again.  I had to take desperate measures, which I won’t scare you with, but I feel a LOT better now and that is what is important.  the only thing is that I have had a day with kind of weird eating.  I went 1 point over my allotted Weight Watchers Point+, but I had to have some starchy carbs today.  My body was SCREAMING for them.  A bowl of cereal later and I felt 100% better.

Cheat day will be on the weekend this week, since we won’t get a chance to actually celebrate our anniversary until then.  Then we will be going to Texas Roadhouse where I can get a fat New York Strip!

Here is how today rounded out:

After feeling like poop for the middle part of the day, I got lazy and tracked all of my food on The Daily Plate, and then moved the macro info over to the WW Website to get my total point value for the day.  So I won’t bore you with the WW screen shots since they are points only and no detail.

Breakfast

Lunch

Snack

Dinner

Macro ‘s

Healthy Checks

I can say that for the last 6 days I have openly and honestly tracked all the food that has passed my lips.  Will it pay off on the scale?  I’m really not sure.  I’m still on my throwing-the-scale-out-till-weigh-in-day thing.  Will I be frustrated if it doesn’t turn out the way I want to?  Absolutely not.  I have said it before and I will say it again, if I have to lose this weight 1 pound at a time, that will just have to do.  I will continue to track and go to the gym and I know that if I am doing those two things that it will HAVE to come off eventually.

I hope you are all having a beautiful Wednesday night!

1 Comment
by Shrinking Carrie on September 28, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Challenges, Daily Stats, Goals, Good Food, Health, Motivation, Power, Sick, Weight Watchers

Posted by Shrinking Carrie on September 28, 2011

http://shrinkingcarrie.com/2011/09/28/perfection-challenge-day-6-stats-2/

Magic is Something That You Make!

This post kicks of week 2 of the Fire it Up for Fall Challenge! If you missed the first post you can read it here.

I know it doesn’t LOOK inspiring, but it’s inspiring in the fact that it helps remind me that a 1 pound loss is still 1 more pound less that I have to lose.  Looking at a 120 pound goal weight loss is overwhelming, and this little picture helps remind me that with time I will get there.  And maybe one day I will strike a pose like that on the scale!

Here is a great quote that describes my entire attitude towards weight loss:

“The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that’s when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.”
-John C. Maxwell (Source)

When I found that, I thought to myself, this is me in a nut shell.

5 Questions of the week:

1. What have you done this week to help you achieve your goals?  What haven’t I done?!  I currently have 4 challenges going on right now.  One that started this last week was the Gold’s Gym 8 week challenge.  Then I extended the 6 days of perfection challenge  where I track everything I eat everyday and get all of my healthy checks in.

2. What have you done to make yourself feel fabulous?  I’ve eaten better everyday, and in turn it has made me feel good about myself.  It has made me a happier person all week-long.

3. What is your talent (generally everyone has something big or small)?  I feel like a lot of my talents are hard to explain.  A simple one is I can sing.  This next one I never believed until a few years ago, but I am a leader.  I have the power of persuasion (not to be confused with manipulation), and I have very good communication skills (and help people who can’t communicate, or won’t, to open up).  I was in retail management for almost 10 years and I ALWAYS got along with my staff, even when it wasn’t easy.  I never really looked at any of that as a talent, until I started looking around and noticing that I was better at it than a lot of other people.

4. What’s been the highlight of your week, toot your horn, what are you proud of? My 3.4 pound weight loss!  I have moved down a decade of numbers and am now in the 250′s.  I am only 5 pounds away from my 10% Weight Watchers goal and this will be the first official time that I have not quit  WW before I got to my 10% goal!

5. Fun Question: What’s your guilty pleasure TV show?  I don’t think I really have a guilty pleasure TV show, at least none that I am embarrassed by.  A weird one is probably “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”.  They drive me INSANE and it only makes me angry when I watch it because they are so out of touch with reality, but I find myself glued to an episode if I haven’t seen it.  My only hope is that the other people watching it share my attitude towards them.  Man I hate that show.

Monday’s are full of fun post’s so check back for Friend Making Monday!



14 Comments
by Shrinking Carrie on September 26, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in About Me, Challenges, Fire It Up for Fall, Goals, Inspiration, Motivation, Power, Weight Watchers

Posted by Shrinking Carrie on September 26, 2011

http://shrinkingcarrie.com/2011/09/26/magic-is-something-that-you-make/

Perfection Challenge: Day 3 Stat’s

I get a little nervous on rest days that I will go over my points/calories, but I was very pleased at the end of the day that after being careful and weighing and measuring all of my food I came in just under 1500 calories and 6 points to spare.  I got a little tempted at dinner (because I made roast beef & mashed potatoes), but after weighing all of my food it looked like the quantities would be satisfying.  And now I am plenty full so I am glad I didn’t let my eyes get bigger than my stomach.

Here is how today rounded out:

 

Breakfast

Lunch

Snack

Dinner

Macro Stat’s

Once again, a little heavy on the carbs, but my protein was spot on for my weight lifting schedule.

Healthy Checks

Hmmm.  No dairy today, weird.

Great day of eating and now I am anxious to get back to the gym tomorrow morning.  That is why I love a rest day, I’m roaring to go on Monday morning!

Have a restful Sunday night!

Leave a Comment
by Shrinking Carrie on September 25, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Challenges, Daily Stats, Good Food, Health, Power, The Daily Plate, Weight Watchers

Posted by Shrinking Carrie on September 25, 2011

http://shrinkingcarrie.com/2011/09/25/perfection-challenge-day-3-stats/

Perfection Challenge: Day 2 Stat’s

Guess what I got when I logged onto my Livestrong account and started tracking my calories?  This fun little message:

I have never tracked long enough on The Daily Plate to actually get a kudos’!

I hate the weekends.  Call me crazy, but I like it better during the week when I can go run errands and know that not everybody else is going to be out in the same places I am.  Usually I get excited because it means that my Hub’s is off in a day, but because he is a hard-working provider he picked up extra shifts on Mon-Wed of next week, wah.  At least we will get to go out for our anniversary next week, and coincidentally, it falls on my cheat day.  I think all-you-can-eat shrimp from Red Lobster may be taken advantage of.

Here are Day 2 Stat’s of the Perfection Challenge, and I am pretty pleased with the results:

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

I like the look of that pie chart.

Healthy Checks

Oops, lots of water has been drank, but not tracked unfortunately.  I am on my 4th 32 ouncer.

I hope everyone’s Saturday has been filled with lots of fun!

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by Shrinking Carrie on September 24, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Challenges, Daily Stats, Goals, Good Food, Health, Power

Posted by Shrinking Carrie on September 24, 2011

http://shrinkingcarrie.com/2011/09/24/perfection-challenge-day-2-stats/

WIAW: Day 4 of Perfection!

Today I successfully ate more vegetables than fruit, which is an oddity in this girls life.  One of the things that I love about eating mostly healthy food, is that after a couple of days your cravings disappear, and realize that most of it is in your head.  Here is where I ended out the day:

Breakfast:  Today was a lifting day, so a Protein shake was appropriate for muscle-building.

Weight Watchers

The Daily Plate

Lunch:  I got thinking about how I have the time to make better lunches, I just wait until I’m starving so I make something quick.  Today I actually took the time to plan a lunch out, and I’m glad I did!  I had a chicken sausage with horseradish mustard, roasted broccoli with mozzarella cheese melted and topped with spicy marinara sauce.  It was totally yum!

Weight Watchers

Dinner: I was kind of clambering at the last-minute when 2 stores didn’t have the peanut sauce that I wanted.  Instead, I got some new-to-me Red Curry Sauce.  I roasted spaghetti squash and pounded out a 12 oz. chicken breast.  Side note:  I only thaw out 1 chicken breast for my hub’s and I’s dinner.  The size of the chicken breasts are insane and so to save on portion and cost, we split one.  I cooked the chicken in the curry sauce and then added a half of a red and a half of a green pepper, along with half a yellow onion.  I let it all simmer and then put it as a sauce over the spaghetti squash.  I thought it was delicious!  Dustin like it, but likes it better when I use the squash as spaghetti noodles.  Maybe I’ll make it for lunch for me sometimes.

Weight Watchers

The Daily Plate

And check out these stats:

This has been a GREAT day eating wise, and I can’t wait to see the results on the scale tomorrow!

2 Comments
by Shrinking Carrie on September 21, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Daily Stats, Goals, Good Food, Health, Meal Planning, Nutrition, Power, Weight Watchers, WIAW

Posted by Shrinking Carrie on September 21, 2011

http://shrinkingcarrie.com/2011/09/21/wiaw-day-4-of-perfection/

Happy Coincidences That Fall in Your Lap!

Sweat it Out:
45 Minutes Weights
45 Minutes Elliptical

In the past, it was very often that an exercise challenge just fell into my lap without even looking.  Did I take these opportunities to push myself?  No.  Since I have started the blog I have seen myself challenging myself more than I thought I would.  I have enjoyed putting myself out of my comfort zone and doing things that I wouldn’t normally do.

In October I have a chance to sign up for the Rollin on the River 5K, “A 5K ‘run, walk and roll’ event to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Mesa Developmental Services.  All Proceeds support children in Mesa County with disabilities and their families”.  The only time that I have run (cough, walk, cough) a 5K is when I worked for Pier 1 Imports.  They are one of the supporters of the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and so they paid for the employees to do “Race for the Cure”, back in 2005 (they currently don’t do it anymore, which is kind of sad).  Wow, I’m looking at my old race T-shirt and I can’t believe that was 6 years ago!

Anyway, I digress.  This opportunity was brought to my attention by a dear friend who has a child with Angelman Syndrome. Lucy Ann is such a sweet spirit and was even featured on the news for this events promotion.  Check out the video (it won’t let me post for some reason?), she is such an adorable little girl!  She is making learning strides with the help of Mesa Developmental Services. This is why it is important to keep these services open and running because there are so many people who need this support!

When the opportunity was presented to me that I could combine doing good, with doing good for my body, I jumped at it!  I am so excited to be apart of this event, and it will be my first 5K since starting to lose weight.  If you want to show support for a good program you can sign up here.

I love having so many fun things going on at once!  If you are a new reader (Hi!) here are the other challenges I am involved with right now:

“New Rules of Lifting for Women” Day 5, Phase 2, Workout A
 I cheated today and got on my scale.  I had to make sure that this 4 days of perfection was looking good.  I am putting in a LOT of effort and it is paying off in the numbers.  We’ll talk more about that tomorrow on my official weigh in day.
NROLFW is kicking my butt!  Today I increased most of the exercises to 3 sets of 10 instead of 2.  My legs are weaker than I thought and so I have toned down a couple of the exercises so that my form is on point AND so I don’t hurt anything.  There was no back pain today like there was on Friday, so today was a much better workout.
I think I unlocked some secret places in my lungs today.  I was breathing deeper and getting an amazing cardio workout at the same time!  I increased my resistance to a 10 for 10 minutes, and I felt the endorphins flowin’!  I love when you make small breakthroughs at the gym that help you progress and see results!
Here is what today’s workout looked like:
  • Front Squat/Push Press:  3 sets of 10 reps, 30 pound bar
  • Step-up:  I only did 3 lifts on the stepper, and used a 22 pound par for 3 sets of 10.  This was the exercise that I felt some pretty serious lower back pain with on Friday.  Making these modifications helped me to keep good form, but still feel the exercise.
  • Dumbbell One-point Row: 3 Sets of 10, 30 Pounds.  This exercise is really hard to balance on.  I also can’t get my body into a T shape like the demo.  I do the best I can.  Progress not perfection.
  • Static Lunge-rear Foot Elevated:  Used a 22 pound bar and it helped the form A LOT! 3 sets of 10
  • Push-up:  3 sets of 10. I’m seeing progress, but I don’t think I will see any major changes with this exercise until I see some more weight loss.
  • Plank: 2 Sets, 60 Seconds
  • Cable Horizontal Wood Chop: 2 sets of 10, 60 pounds.  This is my favorite exercise of this phase.  I can really feel it in my obliques, and that is a problem area for me, so I love to feel it get worked!
So far this has been a wonderful day for eating and exercise.  Come back later for day 4 of perfection results and I will also be incorporating What I Ate Wednesday in with it.
Has anyone signed up for a race recently?
Ever done a 5K, 10K, half, or full marathon?  What was the cause you were running for?
5 Comments
by Shrinking Carrie on September 21, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Challenges, Events, Goals, Health, Motivation, Power, The New Rules of Lifting for Women

Posted by Shrinking Carrie on September 21, 2011

http://shrinkingcarrie.com/2011/09/21/happy-coincidences-that-fall-in-your-lap/

Tuesday Stat’s

Today was a very good day eating wise.  If you didn’t catch my earlier post, I compared how calorie counting and the Weight Watchers Points+ program compared.  I did a little extra work and logged my meals on both websites today to see the results of both programs.  I hope there is not too much information going on here, but I found this really interesting and I hope you will too!  I think I’m going to try this method for a few days to see how the foods are effecting me weight loss wise.

Finished out my day with 7 points+ left, yay me.

Here is what The Daily Plate had me finish at, and it also tells you how much of everything you should be having:

The Daily Plate also suggests that you eat back the calories you burn from activity.  This method does NOT work for me so I try to stay within point and calorie goal.

Breakfast with Weight Watchers

 The Daily Plate Breakfast

Lunch with Weight Watchers

The Daily Plate Lunch

Weight Watchers Dinner

The Daily Plate Dinner

Weight Watchers Healthy Checks

Nutrient Breakdown

This day was a little carb heavy so I will have to see how that affects me come weigh in day.  I didn’t eat ANY eggs today, which is weird for me.  I do feel less puffy (if that makes any sense).

Eating is hard because what works for one person may not work for another.  I’m hoping that through this process, I can learn a little more about what helps my body lose weight.  It may be added work to be tracking twice, but I like to see the actual nutritional breakdown, which Weight Watchers doesn’t tell you.  The main reason I do Weight Watchers is for the added accountability, and that is one of the reason’s I don’t switch over to just counting calories.  I love the added support!

Happy Tuesday night!

Anyone out there watch The BIggest Loser Premier?  

I had an activity for church this evening, but you better believe I will be watching it on Hulu tomorrow!

3 Comments
by Shrinking Carrie on September 20, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Challenges, Daily Stats, Goals, Good Food, Health, Nutrition, Power, Weight Watchers

Posted by Shrinking Carrie on September 20, 2011

http://shrinkingcarrie.com/2011/09/20/tuesday-stats/

Curiosity Killed the Cat…

Sweat it Our:
1 Hour Elliptical

Today was the first official workout that I felt like I was going to throw up on the way home.  I was a little panicked thinking that I had nothing to puke in and would just have to do it all over the steering wheel.  Lucky me, I have a horrible gag reflex and only throw up if my life is in danger like food poisoning.  I haven’t had the flu since 6th grade.  Stomach of steel over here.

Another fabulous thing about today’s workout is that I increased my resistance and completely zoned out the entire hour.  I worked harder than ever and didn’t even notice, I was so deep in thought.  What was I in thought about you ask?  Oh, you didn’t ask?  Well I’m telling you anyway!

Let me start with saying that I Love the Weight Watchers plan, and I love the way the point system works, but the last few days I’ve been wondering if I eat ALL of my WW points plus how many calories am I ACTUALLY taking in?  Before I started Weight Watchers, I used the Livestrong website. They have a program called The Daily Plate, and it’s awesome. It has the caloric information for almost every food imaginable. My only gripe with WW is when I go to enter in my food, the particular item is almost never in their database and I have to enter every food myself manually, and sometimes when I go to put it in again, it has lost the information so I have to enter it AGAIN! Kind of Frustrating.  If you are calorie counting, I HIGHLY recommend using The Daily Plate.  You can even make nifty nutritional labels for your meals.  Anyway, it’s awesome.

Moving on.  Today I decided I would answer the question of “How many calories am I actually consuming?”.  I took all the foods that I ate yesterday and put them into my account on The Daily Plate and I found some interesting information:

Did I really eat  162 grams of protein?!  To see the actual nutritional breakdown is interesting to me, and puts a LOT of things into perspective.  Like I am eating too much salt and my cholesterol is pretty high for the day.  I should probably cut back on the eggs a little!

When I had Gestational Diabetes, my nutritionist told me that I needed to keep my protein, fat, and carbs in balance so that my blood sugar stayed stable.  Looking at this pie chart tells me that my carbohydrate intake was a little high yesterday.  Could it have been the 3 LARGE peaches I ate yesterday?  Little sidenote:  when entering in my peaches to The Daily Plate I found out that I ate 532 calories in peaches alone yesterday!  Say what?!

After doing this little experiment I found out that each Weight Watchers point was about 54 calories.  The other thing I found is that I need to do a little extra work when it comes to tracking my food.  The nutritional breakdown really put a lot of things into perspective for me and there are area’s that I need to cut back on.  Let’s remember I’m in this to be healthy not thin, and although staying within my alloted points will help me fit into skinny jeans, it won’t help me live longer and that is the ultimate goal here.

Anything you’ve been enlightened with lately?

BTW:  This is my 100th Post!  Yay me!

10 Comments
by Shrinking Carrie on September 20, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Daily Stats, Health, Meal Planning, Nutrition, Power, Uncategorized, Weight Watchers, Workout

Posted by Shrinking Carrie on September 20, 2011

http://shrinkingcarrie.com/2011/09/20/curiosity-killed-the-cat/

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