Friday, October 19, 2007

How Much Will I Weigh Today!?

I face the scale in 8 hours. I need to have my booty in bed. I have really pushed my body this week with a perfect combo of toning and cardio w/o overdoing it for four consecutive days. I have also tracked my POINTS to a tee online even swapping out for activity. So I am interested to see what the scale has to say.

I am excited b/c Sunday I am participating in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk. It's a five-mile non-competitive walk that I try to do annually to support the women in my family who perished from the disease. I won't be speed walkin, but I will turn on the "active" mode of my pedo. Gainin Activity POINTS for a cure, baybee. :)

I'm excited. Gotta get up bright and early... have yet to decide if I'm gonna take RJ in the stroller and make a morning out of it. Guess it depends on the weather. My gidget says it's supposed to be sunny and 76... so it might be nice to make a morning out of it. We'll both be hungry by the time I'm done. lol

OK, I should take my bottom to bed. My after workout euphoric state is crashing, so I can go to bed successfully now w/o the JITTERS! I am proud to announce that Turbo Sculpt w/ 5lb weights is starting to get easy. Soon, it will be time to toggle b/t 5 and 8 lbs... perhaps in a week or so. It's been a while since I strength trained, so I am back to basics for real. But, we all must start somewhere, right?

"Good byyye. I mean, good niiiight."

(500 points to anyone who can tell me where that quote is from. lol)

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Shrinkage and Sore Abs

OK, so my abs hurt when I cough or laugh. This is an unpleasant little trophy that I am doing something right down there. I was looking at how long my hair is when stretched. That's one of the cool, frustrating things about black natural hair... it SHRINKS like a mofo. I've seen some sistahs with hair that drapes their neck that can stretch to their BRA STRAP. I will be doing comparison shots as I go along this journey to see the difference in stretching lengths... for snaps and giggles.

Back to Ab Jam tonight... along with a lil Cardio Party 2.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007




So, I am in love with my hair. Who knew it would take a hairdo to really cement what I had been telling people for four years!?

The picture on the right is my hair close-up. Are you my hair twin? My texture can be a bia, but I love it the same. The pic is at 2.5 weeks. I love how the tips of my braids have coiled into each other. I will post a pic of them the first day I got them done and you can see how the ends were puffy. The pic on the left is my hair today at officially three weeks. I must say my hair still looks great to me. I was originally going to keep these in for 6 weeks, but as I look at my braids, I am not quite sure that will work. While Trina would be ecstatic, I am not quite ready to loc my hair. Don't know if I will ever be seeing as how with this PSC (protective style challenge) through spring I am too geeked to see my BAA (big ass afro) come summer. :)

At any rate, in other updates the mister seems to be finally on board with getting in shape as well. Not that he really needs it, since ya'll know they could eat a whole cow and not gain nearly as much as we do, but I digress. We went to do some running this past weekend and stopped to get some workout equipment and some vitamins for us. I picked up some GNC Healthy Skin, Hair and Nail vitamins. They contain Biotin (which I have read on more than one occasion is good for healthy growth of all three). After following up with my midwife (yes, I still use my midwife as my PCP for gynecological services so what!) making sure it was safe for me to take while nursing, I started taking them today in addition to my daily vitamin.

My hair and skin are doing pretty well as is right now, I drink a LOT of water daily and I think that in addition to the exercise and fresh produce is playing a strong role. But the vitamin couldn't hurt right? In addition, I am soaking off my gel overlay over my natural nail and seeing what the vitamin can do for those. I will have them cut down some b/c after removing the gel the nail bed is left weak and I am on a computer about 10 hours out of a day -- at least. Not that I ever left much, but I am returning to the true au natural state that is me. I loooove having longer nails, they make my hands look so much more feminine but I don't want to be dependent on the gel and it will cut down on my monthly costs considerably getting manicures instead of fill-ins with my pedicure. :)

As you can see, my ticker says I am down 6.6 pounds as of Friday's weigh in. Loves that. And I am 10 pounds shy of hitting my 10% goal of weight loss. It's all quite exciting. I am resuming Turbo Jam this week. Again shooting for 5 straight days of activity. Yesterday, I did Ab Jam and 20-Minute. A nice start to the week after some days off over the weekend.

My goal in the next two-to-three weeks is to BUTTON my fave jean. They currently slide up, but buttoning not so much. lol

OK, a longer than normal post as an update. I'm gonna try to do better at updating this thing everyday -- like a REAL journal of sorts.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Mas, Mas, Weightloss!


*laughs like The Count from Sesame Street*

I was down 1.8 at my WI this morning *Eddie Murphy Cabbage Patch*. In general, I would LOVE to lose at least two pounds a week so this is great for me. I am still nursing so it's really not recommended I lose more than that a week anyhow. Too quick weight loss could result is loss of milk production and we don't want that just yet. In 8 months, milk can dry up like the Sahara for all I care, but not sooner. Soon, RJ will be eating solids in addition though, and I am supposed to recalculate my POINTS based on how much I am nursing... however, when he's eating solids, I'll be pumping for storage, so it's still considered pumping. I'll work it out I'm sure. But I gots me 5 lb star... TOLD YOU I WOULD!

Ohhhh yeaaaah!

Friday, October 5, 2007

Challenges, Box Braids, and Letting Go to Let God...

I am well on my way to the Promise Land.

In addition, I have been tracking everything all day today both on paper and online and am well w/in my range. I decided to let my body rest some today since I did big sets of cardio and strength yesterday. I usually do a smaller set of cardio on strength days but I needed to blow off some steam so before I knew it I was doing something crazy.

Emotionally, I am not in the best place, but it makes me happy to know that I am dealing with those emotions in a positive way vs. eating up any and everything. I am apart of a "Biggest Loser" challenge in an online community and it's a bit intense. In competitions I tend to get a little "Jillian-like" (Jillian is the new trainer of the black team on the Biggest Loser) and I am working on that. I've always been very competitive. Ever since I was a small child. Not in the sore loser kind of way, I didn't mind losing the few times I did ("Second is not an option”) but more so in the "I trained harder than you, I deserve more than you" kind of way. The thing about competitions though is that they are big on teamwork and that teamwork aspect of the BL TV show is that they are all always in constant communication with the others...living on the same campus. It's hard to recreate that same atmosphere online of all places. We don't have trainers making sure we get up and go, so everything is basically you're accountable for your own actions. SO, because of this it would only be right to have completely fair moderators over the whole shebang. Not so much since this competition began and it made me want to work harder to make sure my team puts up impressive numbers... but already, I see that the enthuuuusiasm has dwindled to a little yawn vs. a big roar! Did I mention I hate to lose? And when I bear witness to those kinda attitudes I want to go crazy on several someone’s.

And I wonder if this is all unhealthy for someone who is studying to be a personal trainer or if this is all NECESSARY for someone who is studying to be a personal trainer. I really don't know. I do know that I am passionate about healthy living and being our healthiest selves and that I can communicate that in person much better than I ever could online via message boards.

I've been in and out of moods lately... I'm not quite sure what my deal is, but I have way too much on my mind. I have been studying and trying to make myself a better person. I have to learn to pray in difficult times to overcome the adversity of an argument so that my words aren't tear-filled and overly emotional. But it's something that's not going to change about me overnight. I do need to continue doing what I'm doing though: studying, building my faith, my knowledge, believing I can make myself better and achieve my goals and leave the worrying to my God.

In the meantime, I enter week 2 of box braids (love them!) and I weighed in today for wonderful news. I was down 2.4 pounds for a total of 4.8. :D My body isn't looking much different. I think that's because pregnancy has changed my shape. But I can't worry about that now. I have begun... to arrive. I will admire the finished product when it makes debut.