8% down and another 8% to go

I finished my 5th week of boot camp. One more week left and I will be done with my 6 weeks. As crazy as this sounds I am actually going to miss it a little. Even though I still hate getting up at 5:30 am and I REALLY hate running I have gotten into a routing.


On Wednesday I finally had a weigh in. It was my first one since I had started boot camp. I mean I had been weighing myself at home on and off  but they weigh and measure us using the Jackson/Pollock 3 caliper method. When they weighed me I was up 3 pounds from where I had been but after the measurement I found out that I had lost 8% body fat. I have another 8% to go to put me in the "Acceptable" body fat range. Even though I knew I was losing weight because my clothes were getting looser it was nice to see the numbers to confirm it.


I felt a little better this morning because I weighed myself and I lost the 3 pounds I was up and another 3 pounds giving me a total weight lose of 23 pounds. I was actually surprised that I lost anything at all this week because I had a bagel for dinner the other night. I also made some brownies for Ken last night and I ate one. The surprising thing about it was I had a very different reaction to the sugar than I usually do. Before I started exercising and eating better I ate a lot of sugar and it made me really tired. After I ate the brownie last night I was on a sugar high. I couldn't sleep. I ended up staying awake until 2 am because of it. I had a stomach ache this morning to and I vowed not to eat any more of them.


Sometimes it is really hard to go without certain things. I really like cake (but who doesn't right?) but I found an interesting recipe for a Paleo cake. I decided to try making it today. Here is the recipe in case you are interested:


Banana Paleo Chocolate Cake


Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of oil (coconut preferrably) or unsweetened apple sauce
• 1/4 cup of honey (not recommended – rather – use really really really ripe bananas!)
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup almond meal/flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 3 bananas mashed

Prepare:

1. Pre heat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Mix oil (honey if using) and eggs in a large bowl until light an d fluffy.
3. Add almond meal, cocoa powder and bananas
4. Mix well.
5. Line a cake tin with baking paper and pour in banana mixture
6. Bake for somewhere between 25 and 45 minutes, or until the toothpick test comes out clean!
7. Store the cake in the refrigerator.  Good served with fruite  and/or a little almond butter, or with Frosting recipe below!

 Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dark chocolate (73%)
• 1/2 cup coconut oil or better yet, coconut butter
• 2 Tbsp honey
• 1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
• pinch of sea salt

Prepare:

1. In a small saucepan over very low heat, melt chocolate and coconut oil/butter
2. Stir in honey, vanilla and salt
3. Place frostin gin freezer for 15 minutes to chill and thicken
4. Remove from freezer and whip frosting with a hand blender until it’s thick and fluffy
5. Frost over cake, cookies or cupcakes!

I just tried a piece and it was pretty good. It's a little rich because of the dark chocolate icing. I only used about half the frosting too. The cake is a little grainy due to the almond flour but all in all it was pretty good and will curb any cake cravings.

Ouch!

Well, I'm on my fourth week of boot camp. Last week we had Monday off for Labor Day so I thought I would make up for it over the weekend. I decided to try out 24-hour Fitness since they offer a free 3 day trial and I get a discount through work

On Saturday I went to a Yoga class. It was great! It was a good workout and I liked the balancing and breathing aspects of it. On Sunday I went to a kickboxing class. The instructor was a lady in either her late 50s or early 60s. I couldn't believe what a tough workout it was. I could barely keep up. I was honestly pretty ashamed that this lady was in considerably better shape then me.

After working out Sunday I went home and worked in the yard for 3 hours. I raked and picked up sticks and pine cones. Our lawnmower broke a while back and we've been paying a guy to come and mow for us. He stopped showing up 3 weeks ago. After I raked for awhile I decided to attempt mowing with our non-motorized lawnmower (not one of my finer purchases). It took me 45 minutes to mow 1/4 of the backyard. At this point I gave up.

I went and bought a new lawnmower later that evening.

I felt pretty rough the rest of the evening. I think I might have over done it. It was 90+ degrees out that day. I really thought about skipping boot camp Monday morning but I forced myself out of bed. I went again this morning too but my right leg has really been hurting all day. I think I might have pulled a muscle. I'm hoping it feels better in the morning. I really don't want to miss a day. I only have 2 more weeks left after this week. I am happy to report though that I'm down 3 more pounds. Woo-Hoo!

Hopefully I can keep this pace up and lose another 20.

Go me!

Wow, I've been a huge slacker with the blogging lately. I've been going to boot camp every morning at 5:30 am... yeah AM... so I've been going to sleep around 9 pm. Since I usually don't get home until 5 pm and then make dinner and then that leaves me just a few hours to send with hubby. So needless to say it's limited my blogging time. I thought I would check in today because I weighed myself Tuesday after boot camp and I've lost 7 pounds since I started giving me a total weight loss of 17 pounds over the last month. Go me!

I signed up for 6 weeks of boot camp and Friday I will be at the half way point so I've started thinking about what I will be doing after my 6 weeks is up. I wouldn't mind continuing boot camp but it's pretty expensive; however, I get a discount to 24 Hour fitness through work. They have 5:30 am classes twice a week and 5:30 pm classes 3 days a week in addition to the rest of the gym and a pool so I think I'm going to give this a try after my boot camp time is up.

Dieting... how's that been going you ask? Well, okay. I've been trying to limit the amount of breads, rice, cereal, and pastas I've been eating. I have still been allowing myself a few cheat meals a week. For example I had pizza for dinner tonight but I had chicken and broccoli for lunch and an apple and peanut butter for breakfast. I am trying to work towards no bread and pasta. I figure as long as I keep trying and don't go completely off the rails I'm still doing okay. I do feel significantly better than I did a month ago when I was still eating crap food all of the time.

I have actually noticed something some what interesting. I was having some pain in my ankle for months and once I stopped eating bread and pasta I noticed the pain going away. I don't know if it's because of the weight loss or the lack of gluten. I've heard some people can have slight intolerance to gluten which can cause joint pain and other symptoms. Whatever it is I have been feeling pretty good. Well, I just thought I would give a quick update since I was excited about my small success.