Week 6

Week 6

I made it to week 6! Yaaayy! I feel so good about week 6 and the changes I've made. I am one of those people who don't like to go to the gym alone. I hate having to share the tiny little weights area with a bunch of hard body men. It's so intimidating. But this week I actually went to the gym by myself. I only did cardio, no weights, but it's progress! ;]

So, I mentioned that I was going to Shakeology last week. I got my sample of it in the mail from my friend Heather. I made a shake for breakfast this morning. I used the chocolate mocha recipe from their website. It was 1 scoop of Shakeology, 1 cup of iced coffee, ice, water or milk, and I added some cinnamon and blended it. It had a nice think texture once it was finished. It smelled a little weird, but it tasted OK. I'm not a fan of protein shakes, I think they smell and taste yucky! I'm not 100% sure if I will continue with Shakeology or not, but I'm willing to give it a try. If you want to give it a try, contact Heather Cotton at http://www.beachbodycoach.com/hmcotton. She has a ton of other Beach Body products she can hook you up with, like P90X and Insanity!

 

My breakfast this morning

 

Gym wise, I went 3xs this week and did Ab Ripper X at home. This week was extraordinarily busy for me, so I missed a few days in the gym. But that's OK becauuuuseee I lost another 2-3 lbs! I weighed in this week and the lowest weight I have been since the month before I got pregnant! Yahoooo!! I have lost just shy of 10 lbs in 6 weeks. 10 lbs doesn't seem like a lot, but I've also been building and gaining muscle too. I rewarded myself with a new Victoria's Secret Bikini this week to wear in Vegas! I'm not at my goal weight yet, I still want to lose another 5-10 lb, but I am so happy with the way I look right now. The happiest moment of the week is when I took my weekly picture, and my things don't touch anymore when I stand with my feet together!! Yes, yes yes!! That was the area that I had the most fat. You tend to store a lot of fat in your thighs when you're breastfeeding, so I had a ton of fat to eliminate from that area. I used to feel my legs rub together when I'd walk, and now it's gone! 

 

 

Welcome back thigh gap!! =]

 

 

I have 2 more weeks until we go to Vegas and I feel so awesome about my weight loss so far! I think I've transitioned to being insecure about the lovely stretchmarks I've acquired throughout 2 pregnancies than I am insecure about being fat. I'm having a hard time grasping that whole "Be proud of your stretchmarks, you've earned them" mentality. I've used Mederma for Stretch Marks for about 8 months now and it has made a drastic difference. I've also just started using a new product called Suuthe. You can buy it online and it has a very wide range of uses, I'm impressed with it so far.

 

That's pretty much a wrap on week 6. I cannot wait for our vacation in 2 weeks, we need it so badly! I definitely won't be entering into any bikini contests out there, but I will be rocking the 2 piece!

 

Week 5        :       Week 6

 

Week 6          :           Week 5

 

 

Week 5 : Week 6

I feel like I look a lot thinner this week

Week 1           :            Week 6

 



Week 5

Week 5:

Blllahhh week 5! Week 5 is very uneventful. I was sick with the most annoying head cold in history.  I didn't get to the gym a single time last week. I spent my time laying on the couch and pretending to be productive at work. Major boooo!! I have still been taking my OEP though and I've lost a total of 7 lbs so far. I was having a rough time with the OEP last week but I think I've figured out why it was making me feel crappy. The OEP is designed to burn calories like crazy. It does decrease your appetite like no one's business so it is important to remind yourself to eat. I wasn't eating and I was getting so extremely tired I could have fallen asleep at the drop of a hat. My body was exhausted from working overtime burning calories without any fuel. So I went to the grocery store and loaded up on apples, peanut butter, string cheese, and tons of other quick little healthy snacks I can eat throughout the day. I've been reading up a lot on clean eating and I want to start trying to make cleaner meals. I've never been big into making my own pasta sauce and what not, but it can't be that hard.  I'm still waiting for my sample of Shakeology so I'll let you know how that goes once I get it. 

Overall week 5 was boring and not much happened, but I still took my accountability photo to share with you all (you're welcome. hah!)

Week 4        :       Week 5

Week 2         :          Week 5

Week 4

Week 4:

So I've made it to week 4. I was able to get to the gym 3 days last week and did my P90X DVD at home the other 3 days. This week at the gym I changed things up a little bit. I get tired of competing with 300lb hard bodies for equipment every night, so I did the rock climbing wall two nights and played volleyball for an hour the other night. I ended all of my workouts with 10-15 minutes of cardio on the stair stepper. Lesson of the week: I can't look anywhere but down at the stairs or else I will fall off, true story. I'm going to get back into my weight routine this week though. I want to try an hour of weights plus an hour of cardio at the gym. I'm starting to build muscle, but I really need to target the fat. I enjoy the stair stepper because I burn 10 calories per minute. 10 minutes = 100 calories! I feel like when I run I only burn 45 calories in 10 minutes. So hopefully this week I can start to really shed some fat so you can actually see the muscle I'm sculpting. I don't want to get too big or muscly and start to look those body builder women. I admire their dedication and discipline, but in my honest opinion I think most of them look gross. Sorry body builders, don't beat me up for saying that.

Week 4 also marks week 2 of my new fat burner OxyElite Pro. I'm not sure how much I like this product. I've reached the maximum dose and I feel like I'm getting more bad side effects than good ones. It makes me extremely tired at the end of the day. Sean and I both left the gym early last week cause we felt sluggish and weak. I've been drinking the 90 ozs of water it requires, so I'm not dehydrated. I think my body may just be exhausted after burning fat all day long. I have lost another 1 lb which brings me to 5 lbs in 2 weeks. I would ideally like to lose 15 more lbs before our trip, but I'd be happy with another 5. A bought a new pair of jeans this week in my regular size, and they're too big! YAY! I've definitely used my weight loss as an excuse to buy new stuff. Like my new "keep calm" shirt... and a few other things here and there. I bought a pair of those teeny tiny Nike booty shorts to wear once I'm at my goal weight. I like to wear them around the house sometimes too and pretend that I look really awesome in them. Hah!

My diet is going well this week too. The OEP has drastically decreased me appetite. I usually have 3 snacks and lunch during my 8 hour work day, and I can't even get my self to eat one snack. I almost feel turned off by the thought of eating food. I need fuel for my workouts, but I guess it's good that I'm not craving sweets and salty stuff all the time like usual. I'm actually considering trying something new this week too. It's called Shakeology. My friend Heather sells it and is going to send me a sample of it to try it out. I'm not a huge fan of protein drinks or powders. I hate the way they taste, and smell! I bought chocolate protein powder mix from my gym in hopes that if I bought it, I would drink it. I couldn't get myself to swallow more than a sip of it, it was disgusting! Sean drinks his down like it's nothing but I just can't! YUCK! But I could benefit from added protein to my diet, and the shakeology stuff actually looks decent. You don't just add water and drink it. You add fruit or peanut butter or something and blend it with ice. I'm getting a sample of the chocolate one and I want to try the chocolate mocha recipe. If you'd like to read more about it or try it for yourself, contact Heather Cotton at https://www.facebook.com/bbhmcotton. You can also visit the site for more information about the actual shakes. http://www.shakeology.com. It's designed to be a meal replacement shake and aid in weight loss, increase energy level, and cut cravings. I'm excited to try it and see if it is something I want to use.

So that's all I really have to say about week 4. It's neat to see how you improve from week to week. Not just how you look, but how you are able to do things you weren't able to do last week. Here's my comparison photos from this week! =]

This was the middle of week 4. I'm seeing a lot of definition pop up in the upper abs. I still have a lot of fat to burn off on the lower abs.

Week 3 to Week 4

Week 1 to Week 4. Can I get those boobs back please?!

Week 3

Week 3:

So I've made it to week 3! This week posed a lot of challenge for me to get into the gym as often as I need to. Between Sean's basketball & softball games, and my ridiculous work schedule not being compatible with the kids club hours, I only made it 3 days this week. I did however do my P90X at home when I wasn't able to get into the gym. Let me start off with a brief P90X review.

P90X is an in-home workout DVD. It promises to have you ripped and shredded by 90 days by doing the videos 6 days a week and following a nutrition plan. It comes with a weekly schedule for you to follow. I started out doing a legs/back video with the Ab Ripper X to follow. The workouts are non-stop, back to back action. You get very little breaks and rest unless you stray from the routine and take your own break. It is definitely not an easy video. I could barely do half the stuff on there while the girls on the DVD are cranking out 20 pull ups each. I definitely have a LOT of work to do before I can keep up. It seems to be a good workout though and I like it. It is much harder to work out at home than it is in the gym. Savanah wants to do it with me and the dog tries to bite my legs the whole time. Working out at home certainly isn't my favorite but I'll do it when I have to. The P90X DVD will set you back about $150, so I hope it's worth the money in the end.

Just finished P90X Plyometrics - good luck walking up the stairs after that!

Secondly, my new product from GNC arrived this week! It called OxyElite Pro. It's a "super thermogenic" that is designed to boost metabolism, curb appetite, burn fat, and increase energy. Let me just say that if I would have gotten pulled over on my way to work on Sunday after I had taken one of the pills, I probably would have gotten arrested for suspicion of being on drugs! It made me extremely jittery and whacked out. If I had to imagine what it felt like to be on speed, this would probably be my best guess as to what it feels like. Thankfully it only lasted about an hour and then I felt normal again. I did notice an increase in energy that's for sure. Its supposed to increase focus as well and I did notice that at work. I was on my A game all day! Most of the reviews I had read said that it will make you feel warm and sweaty. I got the opposite effect! I had goosebumps and felt like I had been locked in an ice box. It does has vasoconstricting properties to it so that's probably why my hands feel like ice. I feel much better today on day 2. I didn't feel so cracked out and crazy this morning. I felt a small surge of energy and a little bit of a warm feeling, but then I got cold again about an hour after taking it. I've read many reviews of people say they lost 6-10 lbs in the first week. If there is a "magic pill" out there, this one seems to be it. 957 reviews can't all be wrong.

This is what the product looks like. The old formula is supposedly way better than the new stuff. The white cap that I have above is the old formula. The new formula has a purple cap. I've read mixed reviews about the new stuff not being effective, so if you can try to pick up the old stuff if you're going to try it. This is my 3rd day on OEP and I'm down 4lbs. YAHOOOO! I didn't get cold today or any crazy feelings. I did however sweat my ass off during my workout.

 Week 3 as a whole was not my best week. I'm glad I'm seeing the number on the scale go down, but I hate that I only went to the gym 3 days. I try not to be too hard on myself since I do work a full time job and manage a household with 2 kids (3 if you count my husband). This week will be better. I'm shooting for 5 days in the gym and an hour of P90X cardio every morning.

Here are my photos for the week! =]

 Week 3 is green, week 2 is blue. Not a HUGE difference but its coming! Those abs are coming in but they're still buried under a layer of fat so I've gotta work hard to burn that fat off this week.

 This is week 3 and Week 1. Week 1 is embarrassing, that bikini was hanging on for dear life!

I've always had a really muscular back and I can kind of see it coming in. I'm loving my butt though! It's not a big difference but I can absolutely see in a change in it. Regular squats are so easy for me now and I actually really enjoy doing bar squats. I use 10lbs on each side of the 45lb bar. 

The side "V" line is more visible this week. I make sure to spend at least 5-10 minutes on side obliques during my ab workout. 

So that's all for this week folks! Stay tuned for week 4 updates next week. I'm crossing my fingers for some more lbs to drop off this week!

Week 2

Week 2:

So week 2 I had definitely noticed a difference in my appearance. My work clothes are looser (not much, but noticeable). I usually have to suck in to button my pants, and this week I was just able to button them! YAY! Its the small things really. At the gym is where I've noticed a real difference. Sean decided that it was time to add some weight onto my sets. So I went from squatting the bar (45lbs) to adding 10 lbs on each side. Yeaaaaah! ;] It may not seem like much to most people, but I will take any small victory. I also added 5lb weights to my bench press! This was the most exciting thing for me as on day 1 I could barely lift the bar, I mean literally it looked like the bar was attacking me. I feel so much more confident doing my workout when I can actually do them properly and (hopefully) look good doing it. I saw 2 girls at the gym this week who were squatting the bar and it was crooked and wobbling all over the place. After I laughed at them, I remembered that that's how I probably looked when I started. Silly. I am not as tired at the end of my workout anymore, I actually feel really good when we leave! I can tell I'm getting stronger, I just wish I was getting skinnier too! I'm not sure how much I like this "muscle weighs more than fat" idea. Here is my progress picture from week 1 to week 2. I dread taking these pictures, but this week I thought I looked, well... kind of good. Definitely not get in a bikini at a Vegas pool party good, but good. 

My personal fitness challenge - Week 1

Hi there! Welcome to my personal 50 days of fitness challenge journal. I started doing this challenge to get myself into better physical shape for myself, my kids, my husband, and most importantly to look good naked 
again! ;] 

About Me:

My name is Bree and I'm 25 years young old. I have 2 children, Savanah -4 and Mason - 7 months. Being pregnant at 20 years old was certainly not a goal in life and was most certainly one of the greatest challenges I've faced in my life thus far. The only, and I mean ONLY, benefit from having a baby so young is that my body bounced back in a very short time with very minimal effort. I was back in a bikini in no time without being self conscious or wearing a cover-up. This last time was quite a bit different. With Mason I was sick constantly! I was down 11 lbs by 5 months because I was so sick I could hardly eat more than 2 bites at a time. I felt great about my weight during his pregnancy, until about 7 1/2 months. I started packing on lbs like crazy, seemingly out of nowhere! By delivery time I had gained 50 lbs! I started my pregnancy at 133 lbs and ended up topping out at 183 lbs! That's the normal weight for for a woman who is carrying twins. I have no idea how it happened or why, but it did. I was hopeful that the weight would just fall off of me again, but 7 months later it is still hanging on for dear life. I am 5"8 and have never weighed more than 138 lbs. I don't starve myself, I'm not anorexic, that's just how my body type has always been. Tall & slender. I've always worn a size 2-4 without really following a diet or exercise plan. So needless to say when I couldn't fit into any of my clothes post-pregnancy, I was left feeling sorry for myself, hopeless, and depressed. If I was going to be fat then why not just go all out and really be fat!

My "diet" consisted of cake, brownies, soda, fast food every day, and absolutely no exercise. I paid $30/mo for a gym membership for 12 months and used it probably less than 10 times. I felt good telling people I had a gym membership, even though I had never stepped foot in there.

This is me Nov. 3rd. To someone who has never met me, this looks normal. But this is about 40 lbs over my normal weight. I hated how fat and jiggly my arms looked in all of our wedding photos. I had a double chin, chicken wing arms, and that weird armpit fat roll. 

This is me just a year before our wedding. I was a promo girl for Miller/Coors. I ate what I wanted and worked out almost never. I have always been skinny, so carrying 30-40 extra lbs arounds for 7 months has been quite an experience.

I started Weight Watchers Online in November after I saw how fat I really was in our wedding photos. I was ready for a change and wanted to be thin again. Weight Watchers is a great program that's easy to follow, and it works! I ate all of my normal food, just in much smaller portions. The program worked great for me, I lost 9 lbs in November, and another 8 or so in December. I still couldn't fit into my jeans, but I felt great. I looked forward to my weekly weigh in to see how much I had lost. After those first few pounds came off, I started to feel confident again and slowly started to stray from my diet. I got content with my weight and being out of shape. My husband was always encouraging, supportive and always told me I looked great, so I stopped following my points program and quickly fell back into a sugary, sweet eating binge.  I gained back about 4 lbs, but so long as I could have my brownies I was OK with it.  I was content with my meager weight loss, at least I could say I had lost anything.

So after months of being content with my weight, I started to feel those negative, self loathing, feelings coming back again. I looked fat in the mirror, I was tired after walking up a flight up of stairs, and my fast food habit was getting expensive. One day at lunch I went to Wendy's and ordered a full size spicy chicken salad, french fries, 2 baked potatoes with cheese, a small frosty, and a large soda. I think my total was like $16! It wasn't the amount of food that I had just ordered that made my say "holy sh-t", it was the price! Spending $16 for one person to eat at a fast food place is like spending $500 at Forever 21 - you got WAY too much sh-t that you didn't need! So as soon as I got back to work I hopped online and looked for a new gym. I decided to join Lifetime Fitness. It was close to my house, had great kids club hours, tons of classes and clubs to join, and it's super nice!

So fast forward to last week - Week 1 - of my fitness journey. I ordered 2 products from Max Muscle. Emerge and Cleanse & Lean. 

Emerge is a drink mix that is designed to aid in fat loss, decrease appetite, enhance your mood, and energize you before workouts. Its supposed to do this awesome thing called fuel partitioning - essentially turn fat into fuel. 
Cleanse & Lean is a digestive & diuretic cleanse. It's supposed to keep you regular and flush out excess water weight (and well, extra poop) Gross. I've been using these products for about 2-3 weeks now. I can't say that I have experienced weight loss yet - but there has definitely been some changes I've noticed. Emerge does give me the energy I need to keep up with my husband in the gym. I do feel a difference in the gym when I've taken Emerge v. not taking it.  Cleanse & Lean has been a hit or miss. One week it keeps me beyond regular, anything I eat doesn't stand a chance to even be partially digested before it's on the tarmac waiting for departure. Yet the next week, nothing...... So I don't know how I feel about Cleanse & Lean just yet. I ordered a new product yesterday called OxyElite Pro. I know, I know, fat burners are not good for you, but I've got 50 days to lose 15 lbs before we go on vacation. At this point it's not even about weight loss - I've seen how much better my body can look by transforming that fat into muscle, and not just losing weight.  So let me share with you my accomplishments from week 1.

Week 1:

I started out working out 4-5 times a week with my husband Sean. I started out doing 45 minutes of weight training with him and then 30 minutes of cardio. I was trying to incorporate the C25K program into my training but my chins and hips are so bad from years of competitive cheerleading, I ultimately decided that running was not for me. My chins felt like they were breaking in half and burning on fire at the same time. So I switched to doing 90 minutes of weight training with 10 minutes on the stair stepper. Day 1 I could barely bench press the 45 lb bar. It was wobbling everywhere, I couldn't control it or lift it. I bet people thought I was an idiot - but I really could barely lift it. By then end of week 1, I was able to control the bar and actually able to finish a set of reps. I didn't have any weight loss this week, but that's ok. I cut out soda and a lot of sugar from my diet. I bought a water bottle and drink at least 80 ozs of water each day. There are no more snacks in my desk at work (well no sugary snacks). I pack my lunch every day. I make a weeks worth of meals every week and take them to work all week. My favorite is broccoli & chicken. Sometimes I add rice, but I'm not a huge fan of rice. I don't eat red meat so I'm really limited on protein options. It's either chicken or beans. I'm also allergic to about 90% of fruit so I can't just really incorporate that into my meals either. I can have apples, oranges, grapes, and pineapple. Everything else sends me into anaphylaxis  I'm not trying to eat to become a body builder or bikini model, I just want to know what I'm putting in my body. I've swapped salt for Mrs. Dash salt free blends. I like the extra spicy & southwest chipotle ones the best. I have an unhealthy relationship with salt, so trying to cut out salt was the most difficult part. So my lunch typically consists of my main lunch meal, and a few snacks. I eat apples & peanut butter mid-morning, my lunch, and then either string cheese in the afternoon or unsalted rice cakes. Definitely not my ideal days worth of food, but I'm getting used to it.  

Food prep day. Cook all my chicken and broccolli, then separate it out into 4oz of chicken & 1 cup of broccolli. Thats what I eat all week. Yumm. I do add salsa for flavor.

Here is my week 1 photo. Not a HUGE difference, but I know this is going to be a slow process. The best advice I've been given is to track your weekly progress with photos. Even if you don't think you see a difference, you will when you look back at them later. So every Monday, I strip down and torture your eyes with a photo of me in a bikini. You're welcome.

I know what you're thinking, theres no difference. And there's not. 














I'm always so proud of myself when I finish my reps. My husband thinks I'm crazy cause I get so excited when I am actually able to add weight or finish a set. Definitely noticing more strength, you just can't see it yet.