So you think you can dance?

Since my last post I have been using the Wii to exercise, so I thought I would review the video/games I have used. I feel like a few were wasted money and I hate to see anyone waste money, so here goes.

Gold's Gym Cardio Workout: Uses the normal Wii controller, Nunchuck and balance board. $18.04 Amazon.com

I love this one! It is boxing! Lots of fun and a great arm workout. I have some shoulder issues, so they were on fire after this, but I still loved it. I think its a great price and a fun arm workout.

Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2010: uses the normal Wii controller and balance board. $14.07 Amazon.com

Save your $15! I absolutely hated this workout! The premise is you are in an exotic location and you use the controller to pick your location, mountains, dock, beach front, etc. I thought great we can work out on the beach, nope each location is one, yes ONE exercise. So after you do these exercises in the location you have to stop, let the Wii do it's thing and pick another place, load the exercise, etc. Such a waste of time! Also, the exercises using the balance board where you get on the floor, I feel like you do not get enough time to get into position before she starts. The only thing I liked is the run, but you will see later the game that came free with the balance board also offers this exercise. Again save your money!

The Biggest Loser Challenge: Uses normal Wii controller and balance board. $27.98 amazon.com (I got it at Target and I *think* it was on sale for $19.99).

I loved this one! I did not think I would because I am not a fan of the show. You pick the trainer (either Jillian or Bob). I chose Bob. They make the person working out with the trainer look like you. You pick facial features, height, weight etc. so I thought that was nice. You pick the length of your workout and the trainer (Bob) takes you through everything. It was a good workout. I was sweating (but I did during all these games as I can sweat like a man just walking through a room, blech!) Sometimes Bob says the same thing over and over and sometimes things he says make no sense. Such as the gauge on the side of the screen used to tell you how well you are executing a move, is on great, but Bob is saying something like, "Come on you got to try harder!" Other than that I really liked it and will continue to use it.

Gold's Gym DANCE Workout: Uses both normal Wii controllers, $19.96 (I got it at Target for $19.99)

I just finished doing this one for the first time. It is similar to the Wii Just Dance games, except it tells you the calories you are burning for your weight and you can make a workout up. You can pick the length and go through the various dances, pick them and that makes your workout out. I made a 25 minute workout and burned 275 calories. It was fun, but lord I am uncoordinated. I can not dance, nor move my feet and hands at the same time. I learned I could basically just move my feet any way and bounce my hands around to the beat of the music and get "great" points. But I was up and moving, I did break a sweat. All in all a nice, fun workout.

Wii Fit Plus: uses normal Wii controller, nunchuck and balance board. $18.47 amazon.com.

This game is great. I did Yoga, which I never would have and enjoyed it. It has hula hoop, running, step aerobics, etc. I really enjoyed all them and found I just kept exercising because I wanted to try something new. It has a strength training too, but I have not used that section as of yet. It monitors your weight loss, calories burned and time exercised and keeps it all in a bank, which is a nice feature. I also, think this one is great for a family because there are things on there that the kiddos may enjoy.


I will say I thought many of these games were too easy, so last Friday I did the Gold's Cardio Workout in the morning then went out and bought The Biggest Loser Challenge. So that afternoon I did that one. Holy crap I was so sore this weekend, so maybe they do more than I thought.

Kiddo just woke up so no time to edit, enjoy the typos!

Blog spoofing: Rehab Day 10

So just some quick Rehab updates and then a blog entry unrelated.
Current weight 233
New favorite exercise thing: The shake weight (yes it works your arms will hurt!)

Now for the unrelated:

I love to read other peoples blogs and I recently came across one called Sex, Lies and Bacon. It's a "diary" of a single mom. She basically writes a great deal about her vagina, how crappy her ex-husband is and her sexcapdes. Some of it's funny, but it all made me think, how would my daily life fit into her recipe. So I decided to write a blog post trying to fit my blog into her life. Here goes:

Too tired for sex, "Mommy, it wasn't me" and M&Ms

Today was an awesome day in my world of SAHM hood. (Not sure what SAHM means, man you are sooo uncool). This morning I woke up at 6am because my sons foot was shoved literally up my ass! Why? Because we were up until 2am. Wait did I say we, I meant me. No power lead to both kids in bed with me. My husband due to snoring got to sleep in my sons double bed sans kids. It's hard to fall asleep with a curly mop of 2 yr old hair going in your mouth and up you nose. And every time I would open my eyes, these big hazel eyes would stare at me and say, "Hi Mommy, you sleeping!" Then there was the echos of "It's dark!" etc etc etc. We finally fell asleep only to wake up at some point because all the lights came on, so 2 yr old to crib, 5 yr old smashed next to me and daddy back in bed. Lots of action in the sack last night!

Today between my deep obsession with the Casey Anthony trial, cleaning bathrooms and potty training above 2 yr I never left the house. Exciting. I made a dinner that only the adults ate and bribed my kids to pee with M&M's. I might cruise through Ashland in a bit, going 25 MPH in my Mommy mobile to hit up the Wal-Mart for another pack of Princess Pull-ups and some kids bath wash. If your lucky I'll Foursquare it and just to show the gen-y crowd that I still got it, I might even search my Twitter for a coupon! Bitches!

***I am in no way trying to start a single moms/married moms battle. Everyone's life is hard, I totally get it. I jumped into the breast milk/formula battle on-line once I learned my lesson then!*********

The Joy of Cooking: Rehab Day 3

Things are going very well!  I have done the things I said I would and I am feeling great! I am doing some hard analyzing of things and one thing I realized is I LOVE to cook! I already knew this, but I looked one step deeper into it.  I don't necessarily love to eat, but I love the process of cooking.  I find it cathartic. Chopping the veggies, mixing sauces, playing with textures and tastes.  It just makes me happy. So I peeled the onion one layer deeper and realized that cooking is no different that creating with paper or paint.  No different than designing or decorating. Even really no different than photography.  These are all things that I adore and make me happy.  They all use creativity, thinking, art and tools.  Cooking does evoke the use of another sense that some of these do not and that is the sense of smell.  Maybe that is why cooking ranks at the top of my list of favorite hobbies.  It uses all of the senses.   I am going to do some baking this weekend.  It's been years since I have baked bread.  I found my favorite yeast at the local Martin's and grabbed it.  So instead of Peter heading to Whole Foods weekly for their fresh Italian bread and then spending more money on impulse items only found at Whole Foods, I decided to try and make him some.  I found am Italian bread recipe that calls for the use of a biga, so Saturday I will make that first. Then 5 hours later its time to start the process of creating the bread.  I will let you know the results.  I do not eat bread in general.  I will take a tiny taste and usually it has to be toasted to not cause Cybil a problem.  But I will surely taste a smidge to see how I did!

I have not weighed myself since Sunday. I am trying to hold off until Friday, but I am a scale addict!  My hardest challenge so far has been drinking enough water.  I just don't do it.  It's not that I don't like water, I am just not a big drinker.  Add in not drinking 30 minutes before a meal (I follow that rule loosely), during a meal and for an hour after and it makes getting in your daily amounts hard!

Accomplishment of the day:  I am wearing a size 18 sundress as I type this!  It's been a loooonnngggg time since my size did not contain a "2"!

Joie de vivre. Joy of life. Live it, love it and if you    don't, then change it! 

Absence of Malice: Rehab Day 1

Try -
–verb (used with object)

1.to attempt to do or accomplish: Try it before you say it's simple.

2.to test the effect or result of (often followed by out ): to try a new method; to try a recipe out.

3.to endeavor to evaluate by experiment or experience: to try a new field; to try a new book.

You try a great deal of things in life.  You try to do well, be upstanding, live life to it's fullest and be as good or better as the generation before you. You also do simple things like trying a new sport, new foods, new hairstyles, etc.  In trying new things one thing is inevitable, failing.  If you do not realize that failing could be an option, even though no one wants it, then you quite possibly are setting yourself up for a great let down.  You start all new things with a gun-ho vigor that could take down the biggest obstacles. Things are great, you are the Guru of your new found "try" and then it happens.  Life, old habits, monotony, etc and the "try" becomes a fail.  

In the past I have been known to turn a "try" into a fail on numerous occasions.  I love to try new things, projects and tasks, I just hate following through.  I find another new thing to "try" and never finish the first one.  It's a pattern I am attempting to correct.  Today is the restart of Rehab.  I have had fun, taken my eye off the goal and now I am once again focused.  

Like any good Rehab, mine is starting with detox!  Whats that entail? Well the downloading of  a calorie counting app (I am using a free one called Calorie Counter by FatSecret) was my first step this morning.  I will use it to manage exercise, calories and protein used in a day.   My second step this morning was filling a 20oz water bottle with water and drinking it (after a mug of coffee).  Third, eating breakfast, which I combined with step 4 drinking a protein shake.  Step 5, planning a lunch and eating what was planned.  

So far so good.  Want to know what I have eaten today so far:

Breakfast:

8oz 2% milk w/ sugar free Carnation Instant Breakfast added and a tsp of instant expresso

Snack:

Dannon DanActive Immunity Yogurt Shot (blueberry)

Lunch:

1/2 large Pink Lady Apple

1/2 serving of Oscar Meyer Deli Express Grilled Chicken mixed with:

1 Hard Boiled Egg &

1 tbsp Ken's Steakhouse lite Honey Mustard Dressing (yeah, it was kinda gross)

So far so good.  I am hungry (I need a fill badly, but keep forgetting to call maybe I should do that now, LOL).  The big test will be dinner and after. I have/had been in a bad habit of eating nothing all day, then eating a big (big for me) dinner, then having a Margaritta or glass of wine and snacking.  One thing I am planning to do to stop the snacking is drinking a decaf coffee, and if I need to snack having veggies dipped in FF dressing.  I wanted to add to that I feel with any huge thing in your life, by that I mean something that takes a great deal of effort and a lot of time, you need to reinvent it and refresh it every so often. 

I also plan to exercise at night.  My parents gave me the fit board thingy for our Wii.  I ordered Julian Michaels (barf, I can not stand her, but obviously I need her) and Golds Gym Wii games.  I hope they show up today.  I will *try (read above to see that I lose interest quickly, LOL) to write a blog daily.  I think it will be helpful, but boring for you guys.  Maybe you will enjoy seeing what I eat everyday, maybe it will help you!  

The other thing I did over the last week is rid my life of a toxic relationship that was causing some stress.  I am a stress eater and I just don't need malice in my relationships.  Friendships should be rewarding and fulfilling for all people involved, not hurtful and stressful.  

 

So guys here we go again! Who's with me?

Current weigh 235

Damn you Cybil!

Cybil, Cybil, Cybil oh the problems you cause.  I am tired of chewing my food to oblivion only to watch you do the esphogial tango with it!  The throwing-up, the pain, really Cybil is it necessary?  I ask you, have I not been good to you? I have eaten Hot and Sour soup for 5 dinners in a row to give you a break, was that not enough?  Let me remind you that I am uncertain of half of the things that were floating in that soup dear Cybil.  Now Cybil my husband is bringing me a Mediterranean wrap from Jason's Deli in about an hour.  Can you please please please let me digest it.  I have eaten only a 1/4 of a Smart One's lunch today and a skinny Starbucks, I cut all the grass, I took care of 2 kids, I need some damn calories!!!!! So please don't get your panties in a wad when you see tiny pieces of turkey and humus!  I am strongly thinking about making  an appointment dear Cybil to have some fluid removed from you if you do not straighten up!

Now that I have spoken to Cybil, I will speak to you guys!  (OK I feel a tad Charlie Sheen with that)  Things are good.  Dear Cybil digests carbohydrates very well (baked potatoes, crackers, cereal), which lead to a bit of higher calorie eating  (still in small amounts).  This caused me to loss and gain the same 2 lbs for about a month, but I made Cybil my bitch and got it back to where it needs to go.  I think I am in a rhythm again and feel like the weight will start to come off again. The great news is this last month did not completely freak me out.  I was OK with it.  I feel like such a tremendous weight loss done this fast needs a break every once in a while.  My poor skin sure thinks so, as it is definatly showing the effects of this last 8 months.  I would still like to be at 100lbs lost by July 29th, so I better get my butt into the gym!  I feel like every morning something comes up, the house needs cleaning, a kid is sick, I am sick, I have something to do with the search for a new house, etc. (Oh yeah, did I mention we are trying to get out of suburban hell?  Makes you want to rent my house right?)  But I know I will find my rhythm with the gym too.  Once I do I tend to turn into a gym junkie.  It will happen! 

Tonight I did the arduous task that starts every Spring, cutting the grass.  My allergies hated it!  But I love the way the yard looks when it is cut.  I decided today to don a pair of pre-weight loss shorts.  I put them on and they were very loose but stayed up so I went for it, they were all I had.  Well, I had to stop the lawn mower a million times to pull them up.  The weight of my iPhone in my pocket was pulling them down.  I felt like one of those kids my mother was describing to me today over the phone.  She was sitting in the Wal-Mart parking lot waiting on my dad, and said " This kid just got out of his car and I can see his underwear."  I told her that is how kids wear their pants now a days.  Two minutes later she said " I can see his ass, I swear his jeans are around his hips."  Now if you know my mother, those are not direct qoutes!  But I did feel like that, so I just headed over to Land's End and ordered some clothes for Spring/Summer. I cleaned out the closet this weekend and gave away 3 bags of clothes that were too big!  Happy Spring Ya'll!  18 days until I head to Vegas!

Tigers and warlocks and gods, Oh My!

So after a few tempestuous weeks, I can gladly say, "I am back!" I am not only back but I am better than ever.  Now I will not say I am a warlock, or drinking tiger blood or that I even have Gods living with me, but I do feel new and improved.  Lots of loose ends in my life are coming together, my family is on the road to health and healing and man it feels good! 

I have committed myself back to weight loss, not that I ever really forgot about it.  I just realized other aspects of my life were more pressing.  I am happy to say I hit 239 this morning!  Can I get a collective WHOOO HOOOO! That's a total of 73lbs! I love seeing the scale drop down to a new set of 10's! It's like a new goal starts every time that happens, now I am on a push to see the 220's.  My band that was way too tight has now simmered down and I am able to live with it.  I will say I do throw up more now (TMI I know but hey this blog is honest) but I am learning the triggers that cause it.  I am eating slower, smaller bites now.  I think I finally got how to eat with this band.  It was a struggle, but one I am happy I kept with. 

Wow what a crazy 7 months!  I am ready for Spring, why? Because none of my pants fit!

My basket is full...

Just a quick update, well not really but.......  Lots of stuff going on in my life that is putting weight loss to the back burner.  I have not updated here, because well, I have literally not had the mental energy.  I will be back soon with hopefully everything in my life somewhat in place.