jessimash

This week has not been too great. Food - Two of the days this week, I blew it. Both were due to unplanned greatness. The first day, my husband and I got re-acquainted with old friends. We had taco bell. Instead of getting something like a taco salad where I can avoid the flour shell, I got a stinking quesadilla. The second day, we had the opportunity for a date night. We haven't been able to do that in a very long time. We decided to try a new restaurant that serves the BEST steak I've ever had in my life. They also serve Mississippi Delta tamales. Sooo good. I only had two. Then the husband said, "We've already blown it. We might as well go all out." As I'm not one to disappoint, I went along with it and we went out for frozen custard. Oh well. I only did 3 of the 4 workouts this week. I have the yoga planned to do on a Saturday or Sunday. Weekends are very difficult days to get a workout in. I'm going to either have to figure out a way to get a weekend workout in, or I'm going to have to move it to a weekday. I did a good job with the food journal - didn't miss a single day. I plan to do better next week. the only problem I can see having is another get together we're having with friends. It's at a pizza place. *sigh* I can't change the location because they and my husband are in the band that's playing that night. Maybe I can find something other than pizza to eat. Wish me luck.

Normally I would have posted for the challenge the day it started - or maybe the day before. My wifi is out, and since my husband is the nerd in the family and currently extremely busy, I have been without internet. I have however already started the challenge. A ranger is the life for me - currently. I love to run and can currently run a 5k in about 30 minutes, but I also enjoy the results from weight lifting, so to pick one to focus on more than the other is impossible. This is why I chose this guild. As for may challenge... Part of what I'm doing in my diet is getting rid of the things that would cause insulin spikes naturally. My mom has both diabetes and hypoglycemia. Due to this, she has to be very careful about what she eats. Besides flour, the thing that causes the highest spike in her insulin is corn. That is a very starch food and not paleo anyway, so that is the thing I am focusing on for the diet part of this challenge. This will include anything that contains any type of corn product in it. This will be added to my current status of keeping flour and sugar out of my diet. I will, however, allow myself 2 days to "cheat" on this strict diet due to Thanksgiving. - An A will be anywhere from perfection to 10 days of having corn, sugar, flour (CHA+4) - A B will be anywhere from 11 to 21 days of having corn, sugar, flour (CHA+3) - A C will be between 22 and 32 days (CHA+2) - A D will be 32-41 days (CHA+1) - An F would be having these nasty things every single day. I have been successful at keeping up with a 30 minute workout 5 days a week. During this challenge, I plan to increase four of those workouts to an hour long. These are my P90X strength training workouts, and the Yoga workout. I'm hoping to add a 6th day exercise, but it will not be included in my challenge. - If I manage to miss less than 5 workouts during the challenge, I will have an A (STR+3; DEX+2) - 13-16 missed workouts will earn me a B (STR+2; DEX+2) - 17-20 missed = C (STR+2; DEX+1) - 17-20 missed = D (STR+2) - I will receive an F if I miss more than 20 workouts during this challenge. I've always had the occasional heart palpitation, but have just recently discovered that Cardio arrhythmia runs in the family. I do know that msg aggravates this condition, but I don't eat that stuff anyway. In order to have a healthier heart, and to test to see if anything else might cause palpitations, I have decided to keep a food journal. - An A will be anywhere from perfection to 10 missed entry days (WIS+4) - A B will be 11-21 missed entry days (WIS+3) - A C = 22-32 missed days (WIS+2) - A D = 32-42 missed days (WIS+1) - An F = 0 entries into my food journal for the entire 6 weeks I have never done a side quest before, but there are so many things that I want to tackle that I though I would give it a try. Last week, I read the blog post about learning to do a handstand and thought, "Why not?" By the end of 6 weeks, I plan to be able to do a handstand. I will work on this daily. If completed: (STA+1) Now for a Life Quest. When I home schooled my children, we had Bible study daily as part of school. Since they've started public school (3 years ago), I'm ashamed to say that I've seriously dropped the ball. For the next 6 weeks, my goal is to have a Bible study once a week. Small beginnings... If completed: (WIS+1) My main quest in these adventures is to reach a size 6 in clothes, and to obtain the best health possible. My motivation? My family. I don't want my husband or my children to have to care for me as I age. I also want to be a good example to them.

This is the first challenge that I've felt so positive about. It was certainly a success. I only sucked 3 times in the entire 6 weeks in all of my 3 challenges. This was the second time I put sugar into a challenge. I can say that it is officially defeated! No snacking after dinner was another one. As well as I did, this one is very slippery and easy to fall back into. I have a feeling that I may be revisiting it the future. Finally, I added yoga to my workouts once a week. I love the way it makes me feel. I'm very excited about the next challenge. I already have in mind what I want to do. I am officially at level 3 and have decided the direction I want to go. This is my graduation day. You can find in a company of Rangers beginning with the next challenge. http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/36963-challenge-3-jessimash-revisits-the-path-of-least-sugar/

I ended my week the way I wanted to. Success. My scores are as follows: Sugar (Not as hard as the last time I tried) : I only had sugar 1 unplanned day during this challenge. A+ CON+5 Eating after dinner (by far the hardest part of this challenge): I ended up sucking twice. Not bad. A DEX+5 Yoga: (the easiest): I actually enjoyed doing this, and completed it without any problems. A+ WIS+5 This challenge was certainly a success! Looking forward to the next one!

I'm in a size 8!!! Comfortably!!!! One more size to meet my main goal! Also, this week, I've lost over 2 pounds. I'm down to 156.8. Isn't that a wonderful number?! But not the most wonderful... (I don't want to get too comfortable.) So, this has been a pretty great week. I did have sugar Friday evening, but it was much less than I would normally do - about 1/2 c. of frozen yogurt. Not giving excuses; just telling it as it is. No after-dinner snacking. I did my yoga this week. It was a day later than usual, and I had to make myself do it, but I got it done. This is the last week of the challenge, right? Going out with a bang! I'm expecting perfection from myself. It can be done! On a side note, my husband and I have started a little side quest together. In an attempt to get better with some financial stuff, we are doing a little challenge that will go until the end of November. We will not be restaurant eating. The only exceptions are for him, he is planning an out of town trip with his brothers that will be overnight, so they will need to eat out 3 times. And we have already planned a get-together with his family in which pizza will be delivered and the costs split. I'm hoping he feels pretty good about the challenge at the end. This will be his first, and I would like to see him try the challenge concept for his health too.

Another great week. No snacking. Yay! I ended up having 2 days of sweet this week because I forgot to plan for the rehearsal dinner. For that day, though, I only had some of a piece of chocolate cake. Because this was part of the wedding prep, I'm not counting that against my progress. Got my yoga done late morning Wed., but it got done. I've started losing weight at a great rate. Since my last post, I've lost 2 pounds, and I'm in my size 8 clothes again (my current main goal being a size 6). My goal this week is just to keep that weight off. Just 3 more weeks on this challenge. I think I've learned a lot and have made watching sugar intake a habit. I'm looking forward to the next challenge.

I meant to post Monday, but forgot. Anyhoo, week three went surprisingly well. I only snacked one day - and it wasn't much (this is still difficult for me.) Exercise is most definitely becoming a habit for me again (YAY!) It has taken over two months for me to feel that way, but I've finally made it. Yoga was a success. Saturday was one of the cheat days I allowed myself with the sugar. My sister had her bachelorette party, and I wasn't going to miss that! Surprisingly, I had just the tiniest bit of sugar and didn't want any more. I had a small champagne float - 4 oz.-ish, a very thin top layer of coconut cake, and a thin slice of flourless chocolate cake (that was to die for!). Oh, and for breakfast, I had half of an almond joy bar that my husband had brought home for me earlier in the week forgetting that I was in the middle of this challenge. After just a couple of bites, I couldn't do anymore. It was waaaaay too sweet. Despite all of that, my body is changing for the better. Clothes are fitting much better and I feel better about myself. The scale is even being kinder. I am so glad I found this forum. These challenges are helping me form good habits - no flour, no sugar, working out daily, no snacking. I have one more sugar cheat day this week (Saturday) for my sister's wedding. She knows I'm doing the challenge and has assured me the cake will be worth the cheat.

I accidentally posted this challenge twice. Please follow me here: http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/36963-challenge-3-jessimash-revisits-the-path-of-least-sugar/

The end of week 2, and all is going well. The only problem I've had is snacking. I gave in one night this weekend, and it wasn't even satisfying. Hopefully I've learned my lesson. No sugar all week. One round of yoga. Six nights without snacking.

Here it is, one week later, and it's been a complete success so far. I've resisted all sugar temptations and eating after dinner temptations, and I made myself do Yoga once this week. The hardest so far has been snacking after dinner. I wrote out a new schedule that will help keep me and my mind busy after dinner. I'm also doing fairly well at keeping up with the good habits I started with the last challenge. That part hasn't been perfect, but hopefully with the new schedule, it'll be easy to get back in line. Here's hoping that this week will be much easier.

I'm cutting out the things that I know contain processed sugar for now. Reading a lot of ingredients and stuff. I'm allowing myself one cup of juice a day, and whatever fruit I want just to get me passed all the sugar. I've actually already begun to slow down on the amount of fruit I eat. I'll really start working on the fruit with the next challenge. Surprisingly, the snacking after dinner thing has actually been much harder than sugar for me. How weird is that?!

My main quest is simply to get back to a dress size of 6. I am currently in a 10, so I expect this to take at least a year, but if I can achieve it sooner, you won't see me crying! I would call this challenge a success! I only missed one day of workout due to time/laziness. The rest that were missed (4) were due to injuries. I give this section a B (STR +1) I only missed 3 days of drinking the amount of water I had intended: A (CHA +1) And I completely avoided fast food. A+ (CON +1) Level up: Level 2

My main quest is simply to get back to a dress size of 6. I am currently in a 10, so I expect this to take at least a year, but if I can achieve it sooner, you won't see me crying! During this challenge I will be revisiting the goal that I failed 2 challenges ago - No sugar! I will continue to allow myself the mere 2 tsp. of sugar in my daily coffee. Also, there are 2 dates that I will be allowing myself to have sugar. These dates coincide with my sister's wedding. Other than that, there will be NO sugar in my diet for the next 6 weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing how much weight I manage to lose. - An A will be anywhere from perfection to 10 days of having sugar (CON +5) - A B will be anywhere from 11 days of sugar to 21 days of sugar (CON +4) - A C will be between 22 days of sugar and 32 days of sugar (CON +3) - A D will be between 32 days and 41 days of sugar (CON +2) - An F will be if I've had sugar every single day Next, I will be adding one day of 30 to 45 minutes of Yoga to each week. Hopefully this will help with the injuries that I've caused myself in bodybuilding. - If I manage to do this 6 times during the challenge, I will have an A (DEX +5) - 4 or 5 times during this challenge will earn me a B (DEX +4) - 3 times will earn me a C (DEX +3) - 1 or 2 times will earn me a D (DEX +2) - I will receive an F if I don't do this a single time during this challenge. My final goal is to stop eating after dinner. No more of those nights sitting in front of the t.v. and snacking. The scoring for this will be equal to that of my sugar goal. The only difference is that my RRP points will go to WIS My motivation is my family. I don't want my husband or my children to have to care for me as I age because I didn't take care of myself in the best way that I could.

My main quest is simply to get back to a dress size of 6. I am currently in a 10, so I expect this to take at least a year, but if I can achieve it sooner, you won't see me crying! During this challenge I will be revisiting the goal that I failed 2 challenges ago - No sugar! I will continue to allow myself the mere 2 tsp. of sugar in my daily coffee. Also, there are 2 dates that I will be allowing myself to have sugar. These dates coincide with my sister's wedding. Other than that, there will be NO sugar in my diet for the next 6 weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing how much weight I manage to lose. - An A will be anywhere from perfection to 10 days of having sugar (CON +5) - A B will be anywhere from 11 days of sugar to 21 days of sugar (CON +4) - A C will be between 22 days of sugar and 32 days of sugar (CON +3) - A D will be between 32 days and 41 days of sugar (CON +2) - An F will be if I've had sugar every single day Next, I will be adding one day of 30 to 45 minutes of Yoga to each week. Hopefully this will help with the injuries that I've caused myself in bodybuilding. - If I manage to do this 6 times during the challenge, I will have an A (DEX +5) - 4 or 5 times during this challenge will earn me a B (DEX +4) - 3 times will earn me a C (DEX +3) - 1 or 2 times will earn me a D (DEX +2) - I will receive an F if I don't do this a single time during this challenge. My final goal is to stop eating after dinner. No more of those nights sitting in front of the t.v. and snacking. The scoring for this will be equal to that of my sugar goal. The only difference is that my RRP points will go to WIS My motivation is my family. I don't want my husband or my children to have to care for me as I age because I didn't take care of myself in the best way that I could.

So I would call this challenge a success! I only missed one day of workout due to time/laziness. The rest that were missed (4) were due to injuries. I give this section a B (STR +1) I only missed 3 days of drinking the amount of water I had intended: A (CHA +1) And I completely avoided fast food. A+ (CON +1) Level up: Level 2