Changes | My Health and Weight Loss Journey to Get Fit and Lose Weight

Welcome to week 31 of my health and weight loss journey! I've been off track for a few weeks now and due to the lack of activity to report, among other things, I've decided to make this series a monthly post for now.

If I come across any great workouts or health products or services that I feel are worth sharing, I will share those in either the monthly post or a separate post if warranted.

I hope no one is disappointed by this, but without too much to share it's kind of redundant.

The Only thing to report in this post is that I lost 1 pound this week. Nothing new, it goes up, it goes down. Oh, and I've been trying to re-establish 2 daily habits that I did years ago. I would do squats for the 2 minutes that I brush my teeth (about 40 squats) and do 20 push ups during the time that I'm getting ready. I used to do this every day without fail and then I stopped. It's definitely a challenge to make this become a habit again... but I'm trying!

I hope the new monthly format for this post will be more interesting as I will hopefully have more to share.

Until then, stay healthy!

XO

Week 20: My Health and Weight Loss Journey to Get Fit and Lose Weight!

I was bad again this week. Other than today, I didn't workout at all. This makes it 2 weeks in a row! I know I'm not the only one this happens to but I get rather disappointed with myself when I don't do at least some form of exercise.

This week, either I couldn't find the time or the energy.  I think the summer heat isn't helping but I shouldn't let that stop me. I could always stay indoors and do some yoga. And, sometimes I just feel unmotivated! But, I want to be here to motivate YOU & ME!

At times I wonder why I even bother to workout when I'm not losing any weight or seeing any great muscle gains. And, then I realize... even if I don't see weight loss, there are just too many benefits to exercise to stop, even if I don't see any benefits right away.

So, even though I felt super lazy and tired from the heat today, I forced myself to go for a walk. I'm getting back on the workout wagon. .At least, those are my intentions.

As Nike says "Just Do It!"

I am continuing with the Pedometer App (pictured below) to track my steps.

Workouts for the week:
Today-  48 minutes / 1.99 miles

Weigh in:
Weight: down .5 lbs
Fat: up 1%

Next week I'm going to share with you the things that I find are essential for walking and hiking safely, so stay tuned for that.

Hope to see you next week with more to report.

Have a great weekend!

Week 14: My Health and Weight Loss Journey to Get Fit and Lose Weight!

Welcome to week 14 of my Health and Weight Loss Journey to Get Fit and Lose Weight!

If you missed last weeks post here is a link to it.

Read on to see what I accomplished this week.

 I found this on Google and found it interesting. As you can see, it recommends that adults engage in 150 minutes of moderate activity a week. Based on this, If I exercise just 30 minutes a day for 5 days a week, I've met these guidelines. Doesn't sound too bad to me. This isn't to say that this is the "gold standard." But, it's at least a guideline for a minimum to strive for.

This week I continued with my walks, even with the sweltering heat. I'm continuing to use the free pedometer app, which I'm loving. I usually walk about 2600 steps during my 25-30 minute daily walks. I walk an extra 2000 steps on the day shown in the above screenshot of my pedometer app. I decided to walk to the store that day to get a few groceries. Save on gas and get some extra exercise in... why not.

Most days I continued on my usual route.

Coming home one day, I spotted this flock of geese. I guess they got lost and headed into someone's backyard. I'm glad it wasn't my yard as they poop everywhere! Not that I don't feel for my neighbours.

Note: I added 15 reverse lunges & 15 walking lunges to the above chart

I'm including my weight routine chart again as I've continued with this routine regularly. I strive for every other day, and I currently use 8 lb weights for all exercises.

I also got a new DVD to try out. It's another Kundalini Yoga DVD by Ana Brett called Happy Hormones. I just got it so I'll let you know how it goes. Let's hope it gives me happy hormones! Being in my 40's, I can use all the help I can get in that department.

Here are my workouts for the week:

Day 1- 25 min walk + 8 lb weight routine

Day 2- 

Day 3- 40 min walk + 8 lb weight routine

Day 4- 

Day 5- 25 min walk + 8 lbs weight routine

Day 6- 53 min walk 

Day 7- 

Weigh in :

Weight: gained 2 lbs

Fat: no change

I exercised 4 out of 7 days again this week. And, here we go with the scale again, up and down every week resulting in no weight change on the whole.

I'm going to incorporate my new Happy Hormones DVD next week, so we'll see if that makes a difference.

Let me know in the comments what you're doing to stay in shape?

See you next week!

PS. come and join all the blogger fun over at The Best of Blogosphere!

Week 13: My Health and Weight Loss Journey to Get Fit and Lose Weight!

I'm a day late with this post as I forgot to weigh in on Friday morning so I decided to wait until today so I could have an accurate weigh in for the week.

As always, here is a link to last weeks post.

This week, I've continued with my walks and my custom weight routine (chart below).

Plus, I discovered an awesome app that I'm going to share with you!

I came across this really awesome app called "Pedometer." It tells me everything I want to know about my walks, including distance, time, steps, and more. And, it doesn't require the internet to work! Here is a link to it if you are interested in checking it out.

Here you can see that the Pedometer app shows the date, how many steps, calories burned, time, miles, and how fast you were going.

I just discovered the app so I'm still learning about how to use it and what else it can do. I've only used it for the last 2 days so far and the first day I forgot to turn it on until a few minutes into my walk.. hence why it shows my time of only 23:56 minutes when I really walked for almost 30 minutes.

I'm still using my custom workout chart that I created, so I'll share it again in this post.

I do this weight routine every other day after I walk using 8lb weights

My intentions are to do yoga on the days that I don't do the weight routine ( I just haven't made the time yet).

*Note: I have added 15 reverse lunges & 15 reverse angled lunges

Here are my workouts for the week:

Day 1- 

Day 2- 25 min walk + 8 lb weight routine

Day 3-  25 min walk

Day 4- 

Day 5- 

Day 6-  25 min walk + 8 lb weight routine

Day 7-  25 min walk 

Weigh in :

Weight: Lost 2 lbs

Fat: Gained 2%

I exercised 4 out of 7 days. I want to keep up with the walks but broke my pelvis in 2 places many years ago and it aches really badly if I speed walk too much or run. It's really been acting up a lot this week which is why I had so many rest days.

I also think I need a new scale. I know that it's fairly accurate but I highly doubt it's exact as my weight just keeps going up and down every week as well as my fat percentage, in ways that don't make sense. I may invest in a new scale.

Let me know what you're doing to stay in shape this summer!

See you next week!

Week 7: My Health and Weight Loss Journey to Get Fit and Lose Weight! #injury

This is supposed to be my week 7 update on my get fit and lose weight journey where I list all my workouts and weigh in. Here is a link to last weeks post and also a link to the original post.

I have been pretty much incapacitated since last Wednesday. So, unfortunately, I haven't been able to workout at all.

If you read what I wrote in last week's post on day 2, you'll see that is when I must have caused the injury.

It's been really frustrating and scary too as I've been in chronic pain but didn't know why. I've had a bunch of tests run and after getting all the results in, the Doctor has diagnosed that the problems I have been experiencing are injuries from working out. He's a funny guy and said that the lesson here was that working out is bad for our health! haha

Until my body heals fully, I wont be able to do any working out. It's been very frustrating as I want to keep going with my workouts but I have let my body rest and heal first.

It was during a workout in week 6 when I must have caused the injury. I remember not being up to working out that day. I didn't have the energy to do it but I forced myself  to workout anyways and I know my form was bad because I didn't have any energy. I was really sore all over after the workout but it wasn't until 2 days after that workout that the pain became isolated and chronic.

I am still in pain but I'm letting my body rest, hoping that my body will heal itself and I can get back to working out etc.

My lesson is that if I don't feel the energy to workout but I force myself anyways if in the first few minutes I am still not feeling it, I will stop. It's better not to workout at all than have poor form leading to injuries. Please make sure you do the same!

I hope to be back to normal soon and able to continue working out as soon as I'm able.

Amy

xoxo

Week 6: My Health and Weight Loss Journey to Get Fit and Lose Weight!

Hopefully, this will be my quickest post ever. Not that I don't love blogging! I just want to get this post up for you.. maybe no one is even reading it.. lol

I may not be online very much for a while. Unfortunately, I'm sick and out of commission for now.

Here is last weeks post on my get fit journey in case you missed it. And, here is the link to the first post on this journey.

Here are my workouts for the week:

Day 1- Intentional day of rest for my body
Day 2- Jackie Warner Personal Training DVD - 40 minute Power Circuit Training (Very sore after this workout, and not in a good way. Hence the yoga the next day)
Day 3- Kundalini Yoga, Solar Power DVD - 50 minute Solar Power workout
Day 4- Sick and out of commission
Day 5- "
Day 6- "
Day 7- "

On day 2, I wanted to switch up my workouts so I didn't get bored. So, I broke out another Jackie Warner DVD, her Personal Training DVD. I was very low in energy that day and didn't feel like working out at all. But, I figured that once I got started, I'd get into it, but that didn't happen this time. I must have had horrible form from my severe lack of energy. As a result, I ended up very sore all over, and not that "sore in a good way" after a good workout. I was so sore that I decided to do some yoga. So, I decided to do some Kundalini yoga. I haven't done this type of yoga in at least a year.

My lesson here is that if I don't feel like working out and don't have the energy that day, I may try to do the workout but if I'm still not feeling it, it's better to stop than have improper form and end up with injuries.

Weight- down .5lbs (unfortunately, it's probably from being sick and not from working out)
Body fat- no change

I can't wait to be feeling better and getting back to work and blogging and such. Not to mention working out!

See you soon!

Amy

xoxo

Week 5: My Health and Weight Loss Journey to Get Fit and Lose Weight!

This is week 5 of my lose weight and get fit journey. Here is the link to the original post.

If you saw last weeks post (linked here), you know that my Jillian Michael's Ripped in 30 DVD broke. So, this week I decided to use my One-On-One Training with Jackie DVD.

The One-On-One Training with Jackie DVD is also an HIIT (high-intensity interval training) style workout- alternating weights with cardio.

The DVD has 3 workouts on it: 

• upper body (20 min)
• lower body (20 min)
• core (20 min) 

20 minutes seems like a lot for just a core workout but I just do a portion of it, at least for now.

Jackie spends one minute on each exercise so you really get to workout each muscle group.

This week I used 5 lbs weights for all upper and lower body workouts.

I love that each workout is only 20 minutes, so it's really hard to find an excuse to NOT do it! And, I can feel that I'm really working my muscles which I love!

This DVD is much more simple in its exercises than the Jillian Michael's one and I find I'm enjoying it a lot more.

I wasn't great with my diet, though. I even had ice cream a few nights this week, just cause I'm a rebel like that! haha

I'm never going to be one to deprive myself when it comes to food. I wont starve myself. I do my best to eat healthy foods but I'm still going to enjoy small amounts of ice cream and such.

This week I feel changes happening to my body. I don't see them yet, but I can feel them. I feel muscles forming and that is enough to keep me going.

Here are the workouts I did this week:
(Note: I used the One-On-One with Jackie DVD for all 7 days this week)

Day 1- Upper Body - 20 min
Day 2- Lower Body- 20 min + Core- 7 min
Day 3- Upper Body - 20 min
Day 4- Lower Body - 20 min
Day 5- Upper Body - 20 min + 50 crunches + 50 reverse crunches
Day 6- Lower Body - 20 min + Core - 10 min
Day 7- Upper Body - 20 min

I weighed in on Friday morning as usual. Here are my results:

Weight: no change
Body fat: no change

Whaaat!?!?

I was really hoping/expecting to see some results on the scale since I really can feel my body changing now and I worked out every single day. But, I can feel those muscles building. So, I don't care what the scale says at this point. When you feel your body changing, that's motivation enough!

Do you know of any great at home workout DVD's that are short in length but work? Please leave a comment below!

Amy

xoxo