Mamavation Monday

What a week!

Last Week’s Goals:

-Walk 18 miles

-Continue with The Shred

-Continue eating healthy snacks

-Increase water intake

-Become a Mamavation Mom finalist

This Week Walking/Exercise Totals:

Monday: 3.4mi [2^nd day Shred, Lv1]
Tuesday: 3mi Shred, 45 sec plank, [3^rd day Shred, Lv1]
Wednesday: 4.1mi [4^th day Shred, Lv1]
Thursday: 4.2mi [5^th day Shred, Lv1]
Friday: 4.3mi [6^th day Shred, Lv1]
Saturday: .5mi, 3-30sec plank, 50 jumping jacks [7^th day Shred, Lv1]
Sunday: 1mi, 4-30sec planks, 15 push-ups [8^th day Shred, Lv2]

Total Miles = 20.5

Another week in a row that I surpassed my walking totals! I walked an extra 2.5 miles beyond my goal, and it feels great! I’m really getting used to walking now; it’s become something I have to do. I don’t even get mad anymore when I see the bus go by. Walking has given me a time to clear my head and get my thoughts together and catch-up on my music!! I’m pretty obsessed with Kanye West – My Dark Sick Twisted Fantasy oh and N.E.R.D! Definitely have to have something upbeat for my walk to work in the morning. And I feel like my legs jiggle less and that they’ve possibly firmed up! Wouldn’t that be awesome! With all the walking I’m doing, my legs HAVE to be toning up!

I have continued with Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred. Somehow. You’re supposed to do Level 1 for 10 days than switch to Level 2, but I along with Tara at The Young Mommy Life have been doing The Shred together and she progressed to Level 2, so I HAD to switch. When she told me she sat on the floor for 20 minutes after, I was a little scared, but I went ahead and did Level 2. And…..it kicked my butt, big time!! Attempting to do Level 2 really showed how out of shape I am! I had to stop multiple times even though I followed the modified version of the exercise. Jillian Michael is serious! Its 20 minutes of pure butt-kicking. Instead of motivating me, it’s making me want to run away! But I know that I HAVE to press on. That I have to force my body to work hard. It’s just really discouraging when I cannot keep up with the pace or exercises! But into week 2 we go, and I’m determined to by the end of the week do Level 2 without stopping! Go hard or Go home I say.

I think I did pretty good eating healthy snacks last week. I tend to snack on the same things and immediately go for almonds or tangerines or my dried fruit/nut mix, so overall I have been doing ok. I didn’t buy many new snacks for this week because I still have a lot of snacks from last week.

Breakfast. UGH. So I have to admit, I don’t love breakfast. I would much rather skip to lunch. Most days my body isn’t hungry until 11am, but I know waiting that long to eat is not healthy for my body SO I’m going to be making smoothies or oatmeal in the morning. There is a great smoothie recipe featured in this month’s Health magazine that I’m going to adapt for me. The ingredients include baby spinach, ground flaxseed, frozen fruit, and milk. I’m excited and nervous about the spinach, but hoping its packed with good for you stuff, so hoping my body likes it…and my tastebuds!

I went grocery shopping today and these are some of the foods I picked up:

Oatmeal, flaxseed, whole grain pasta & egg noodles, mushrooms, strawberries, and baby spinach.

Been doing a lot better with water this week, and I hardly had any juice which is great. But I realized that I probably should try to pay attention to how much water I’m drinking. So the plan is to go buy a small water bottle and keep on filling it up. If you remember in a previous post I said a bigger bottle intimidates me and I like my water really cold, so I think a small one would work out great for me.

I packed my lunch everyday but Tuesday, when I was craving sushi!! So I headed over to Whole Foods and got some veggie sushi and inari and it was just delish!!! Mmm, totally worth the money!

I was supposed to go to Zumba with my daughter on Tuesday, but she was sick so we’re pushing Zumba class to this coming Tuesday. Now that I’m really thinking about it, I’m nervous about how she is going to do for an entire 60 minutes of dancing. Yes she loves to dance and is a ball of energy, but ya 60 minutes, I don’t know. But I’m still going to try and will bring a bag full of goodies to entertain her if she doesn’t want to dance anymore.

Mamavation finalists get chosen tonight at midnight, I’m going to try to stay up as late as I can, but I start getting cranky at 10 so we’ll see. Big thanks to all those that have supported me in my quest for wellness, it has meant so much to me!! I’ll keep you updated to let you know if I am a finalist!

Oh and I lost .2 lbs lol. Its not much, BUT its a start. And I am very very happy that the scale did not INCREASE!!

This Week’s Goals:

-Walk 20 miles

-Continue The Shred – Level 2

-3-30sec planks everyday

-10 pushups everyday

-Zumba class Tuesday

-Buy water bottle & record water intake

-Lose 2lbs

I also want to start meal planning to try to make my life easier, and I’d love if you could share your favorite healthy dinner recipes!!

This week’s blogging carnival is sponsored by SalonPas.

Have you ever been injured starting a new exercise routine? Tell us about it…If not, do you get any aches and pains? Where?

I have not been seriously injured as a result of starting a new workout routine, but while doing the workout program Chalene Extreme last year I experience severe discomfort in my neck. The Chalene Extreme program utilizes weights and focuses a lot on the upper body. For some reason 3 weeks into the program my trapezoid became extremely tense and seemingly flared up. Nothing I would do with ease the discomfort and world stretch and stretch, but nothing. Finally after consulting my Doctor she told me to stop the program and prescribed a muscle relaxer and weeks later the extreme tenseness of my trapezoids went away. But they are still generally tense and I know I can attribute that to the fact that I’m on the computer 40 hours a week at work and then when I’m home on the computer. Boo!