Rochelle's Blog ::: Subtitles Included

Well the good old scale was my friend this week! After a gain last Saturday, I tried my hardest to stay positive and not get discouraged. I weighed in on Wednesday for my Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans (TEAM COCOA!) challenge, and lost that extra pound I had apparently gained. Well it just keeps getting better and I am down another 2 since then! Hopefully, I can maintain or lose more in time for Wednesday’s weigh-in!

But I am also so thrilled because I finally hit my 5% goal!! I now feel great about buying my Wii and EA Sports Active.

Date	Weight Loss/Gain	Total
5/9/09	–Start–	0
5/16/09	-4.4	-4.4
5/23/09	-4.6	-9.0
5/30/09	-0.2	-9.2
6/6/09	-0.2	-9.4
6/13/09	-0.4	-9.8
6/20/09	+1.0	-8.8
6/27/09	-3.2	-12.0 (First Goal Reached!)

My next goal is to reach 10% loss.

Yesterday I started up my EA Sports Active program and was greeted with this pleasant message:

It sort of caught me by surprise, but really motivated me to keep going. Not that it was really ever in doubt that I would. But I feel like I’ve had a really hard problem setting goals and reaching them in the past few years. And when it comes to weight loss, obviously I’ve never quite completely the ultimate goal.

After my work out was over, and I was panting and sweating from the long run, I got even more encouragement from Bob Greene.

He was all, “Good job, you can do it, I’m going to mix it up for the last half.” Something along those lines. I was still panting away.

So I’m pretty stoked to have made it this far and not given up. I will admit that I have occasionally taken a second rest day here and there, but the program is adaptable. It just pushed my 30-day challenge out even further. There’s no way around completing the 20 workouts. So now I’m scheduled to finish on July 2, instead of June 29.

In other weighty news, I recently joined a website called “The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans.” It’s a great spot! And I’ve even entered a summer challenge to lose weight. The gist is that you and your teammates (I’m on Team Cocoa) send in your weight loss results weekly, and the team that wins (highest percentage of loss) gets a prize. So far my teammates seem really nice, especially our team leader Summer. She’s challenged us to drink more water this week, which I think is a great idea!

When I realized that I really needed to wear shoes to use my EA Sports Active, I dug around for a pair that I could devote just to my EA-S-A workouts. I found an old pair. A pair that I loved so much when I bought them and wore them out big time. I was a lot lighter back then and much more active. They remind me of a good time in my life and so what better reminder, as I’m in the process of making new life changes, of a previous me that was healthier.

I noticed today when I was getting dressed that I could use the third hole on my belt! This is great, because I was pretty sad when I had to start using the second hole a while ago. I’ve been on that second hole for a long time, as you can see. I can’t wait to get to the fourth.

One of my favorite things…
My showerhead. I bought this last fall at Costco. It’s a fancy one with all kinds of settings and such. Well lately, I love it so much more than ever because of how therapeutic it can be after a hard work out on my EA Sports Active.

This rest of this week’s pictures is going to highlight different parts of my weight loss strategy and exercise routine.

This week I did my four scheduled workouts on EA Sports Active. It’s part of the preset 30-Day Challenge, that comes with the software. So far, so good! I am immensely enjoying the workouts I’m getting and I’m consistently impressed with the system and how much I sweat.

After my first day, the muscle hangover was mighty! I struggled getting up and down the stairs and my thighs just burned all day. It seemed impossible to work out the second day, but I did it anyway. Sure enough, once I really got moving, the burn dissipated, and I was really moving. The rest day was nice, and then I was back at it on Thursday and Friday. I ended up burning around 600 calories all together, and I can feel muscles operating that I had forgotten.

Each work out adds intensity and diversity. Some of the exercises I’ve totally mastered, others, such as the inline skating, I’m still struggling at. I can’t wait to see what else it has in store.

So tonight begins week two, and will be my fifth work out. I’m genuinely looking forward to it. I still very much recommend it to anyone who has a Wii!

Hey there! I started the 30 Day Challenge for EA Sports Active. What a blast. It’s great. I wrote all about it on my other blog. Here’s an excerpt:

It began with a walk, which I’m great at (who isn’t?). Then before I knew it, it turned into a jog. Well jogging didn’t go so well for me. The trainer kept informing me that I was running too slowly. I got a bit frustrated at this point, because the one thing I know above all other things is that I’m a super slow runner. I’ve known this for years. I was the slowest in gym class, the slowest on my tennis team, and the slowest on my softball team. I’m slow, plain and simple. So slow, that if it’s me and someone else up against an angry bear and we have to run for our lives, I get eaten.

So a part of me was like, too bad, this is how I run. The trainer encouraged me to pick it up a bit and I tried harder and got some better results. Then I realized I should be wearing shoes for this (duh). So between doing lunges and going back to a jog, I put on shoes and grabbed a glass of water. Yeah, I didn’t have a glass of water handy. Smart thinking!

So when asked to jog again, I did a million times better with shoes. In fact, I never once got told that I was running too slowly. What an improvement, and confidence builder. So here’s a lesson, wear shoes!

A while ago I mentioned setting a goal weight and wanting to get an EA Sports Active when I met that goal. I had been feeling pretty confident that I would hit that goal last Saturday, just in time to start the 30 Day Challenge on June 1. Well, I actually came up short. After some consideration, I decided to go ahead and get it anyway. All the stars were aligned to do it, so I went for it.

I tried it out a little bit over the weekend and set up my profile so I would be ready to go today. From the little bits I tried, I could tell that it was going to be quite a work out. That excited me! I love to work out at home. It’s obviously easier and more convenient. I also have better success at doing it too. So often I have such a long day at work that I want nothing more than to be at home. I do own a treadmill and weights, but I’m never quite sure I’m getting a proper work out. So besides all the fun and different exercises I could do with the EA Sports Active, I was also excited about getting the guidance and a plan.

So I was all geared up to start the challenge on June 1. I had a plan. I would go to work, come home, and get right to it. Well things changed a bit. I’ve been struggling with an earache the past few days. It’s off and on. Friday it was terrible. Saturday it was fine. Sunday it was truly very terrible. Last night I decided that I would stay home from work today and go see the doctor if it persisted. Well I got up and my ear was still ringing. I called in sick to work and planned on calling the doctor. Well after a hot bath and some over the counter ear medicine, it cleared up again. So now I’m just hoping that’s the last of it. I’m not going to the doctor unless it comes back.

Well, since I was home and feeling all right, I decided to give it a whirl and start early, in case the earache did come back and I needed to go to Urgent Care.

I’ve had a lot of folks asking me how it is, so here’s a description of my experience and my first impressions!

First, I got all set up (so I thought). I put on my work out attire, and got the Wii going with the remote and nunchuk. I did some stretching before I began, especially my legs. Then I strapped the leg band (which holds the nunchuk) around my right leg, nice and tight. It stays in place really well. I decided not to wear shoes and just do it barefoot. The resistance strap sat near by and I cleared a little space to start.

Before it began, I picked my intensity level, which I set to low for my first go-around. Active informed me that my projected calorie burn would be just over 130 calories for a twenty-minute work out. It showed me a menu of the exercises I would be doing (around twenty, I believe, maybe less). I bounced around, ready to get moving and then it started.

It began with a walk, which I’m great at (who isn’t?). Then before I knew it turned into a jog. Well jogging didn’t go so well for me. The trainer kept informing me that I was running too slowly. I got a bit frustrated at this point, because the one thing I know above all other things is that I’m a super slow runner. I’ve known this for years. I was the slowest in gym class, the slowest on my tennis team, and the slowest on my softball team. I’m slow, plain and simple. So slow, that if it’s me and someone else up against an angry bear and we have to run for our lives, I get eaten.

So a part of me was like, too bad, this is how I run. The trainer encouraged me to pick it up a bit and I tried harder and got some better results. Then I realized I should be wearing shoes for this (duh). So between doing lunges and going back to a jog, I put on shoes and grabbed a glass of water. Yeah, I didn’t have a glass of water handy. Smart thinking!

So when asked to jog again, I did a million times better with shoes. In fact, I never once got told that I was running too slowly. What an improvement, and confidence builder. So here’s a lesson, wear shoes!

I did the rest of the exercises the trainer had planned for me, like squats (ouch!), lunges (oh yeah), boxing (my favorite), bicep curls (easy but good), and in-line skating (OMFG). The in-line skating. I had heard things about this one kicking asses all over the country. Indeed, it lived up to the hype. What you do is squat to go fast on in-line skates, and then when presented with a ramp you have to jump from your squat. Ouch! But it was a good ouch! I loved it for some reason (hmm… masochistic much?). Anyway, it was great.

After I finished my exercises it presented me with my results. Apparently, I exceeded their expectations and burned more calories than what was projected. I was sweating up a storm and short of breath (in a good way). I couldn’t believe that I accomplished all of that in under twenty minutes. I know that the program will get harder as I become better, and I look forward to that.

Besides all the great training, there’s a journal to keep track of your daily routines (water, veggies, activity, sleep) and advice to steer you in the right direction. There is also calendar to keep track of days you should be working out and days to rest.

I’ve set up my own personal calendar to incorporate it in to my life, which shouldn’t be to hard, but felt like the right nerdy thing to do.

So far, I am completely impressed with it. I absolutely recommend it to anyone who has a Wii and wants to exercise. Keep checking back as I post about the 30 day challenge.