Less Lisa

R.I.P. Lippy (2005-2006)…

Well, at least until possibly next Friday. I mentioned how it was making a clunking noise. Well, the crank in the back end broke. Completely. Clint took it apart and checked it out and found it. We got the part ordered through Sears.com, but it won’t be here till Friday. If you ask me, I think Lippy is being awful dang whiny. Just cuz she’s been having to run with me everyday. She was just looking for a way out. Sorry sucka. You get your few days break, lady, but after that, you’re MINE.

I blame Clint. She ran just fine for me till he had to start trying her out. She was loyal to ME. Not some sweaty stinky man. MEN. Either way, I have to figure out a way to burn over 500 calories per day now without her. I’m scared. I rely on her, as she allows me to burn calories so quickly.

I guess I should mention here, for those of you who are new, Lippy is my elliptical trainer. Lippy for short. I had someone comment last week sometime that they didn’t know what Lippy was, and thought it was one of my kids at first Nope…she’s my butt kickin’ elliptical.

I updated my challenge chart with yesterday as my rest day and the Strength & Sculpt workout today I love the sculpt one for sure, not many lunges at all…thing is, especially now without Lippy, I don’t feel like I got as good of a workout. Only because it’s not an aerobic workout. It’s strength training with weights. I know that doing the low-intensity workout the other days is plenty every week, but I don’t feel like I really worked out good enough unless I’m catching my breath and sweating.

Clint got called into work tonight. I got all changed and ready for him to take my pictures, and he had to leave. Abbie tried her hardest to do it for me, but they are too far away/missing my head/missing my body/too dark…that kind of thing in all of them…so tomorrow, that’s my objective. PICTURES. Mind you, they won’t be posted here until after the 6 week challenge is over and there is a picture to compare it to to show what the 6 weeks did for me, but I need them taken. Jenn sent me hers confidentially already. Hmmm…wonder if I could do a little blackmail??? Whatcha got Jenn???? Muwahahaha….

Here’s to hoping the Lippy-fix-her-parts come sooner than next Friday.

Anyone else getting the shakes when staying off the scale for more than 24 hours??

I didn’t get a chance to update my TBL challenge chart, but last night is going to be marked as my ‘rest’ day. It was not a ‘do nothing’ night by any means, but I started a project, and didn’t finish until late (like after 9:00 p.m.) so I decided to finish up and sit and finally watch this past weeks episode of TBL. I DVR’d it, so I got to enjoy it in peace last night

So, Sunday will not be my rest day. I will be one workout off from you girls, Jenn and Elizabeth, until Sunday, then we will all be back on the same page again

The project I was doing last night was working on the girls bedrooms. They have separate bedrooms. Right next to each other. Well for the past week and a half, Abbie has wanted her mattress in Megan’s room so they can ‘camp’ together. So Abbie was sleeping on her mattress on the floor right next to Meggie’s bed and Meggie was in her bed. So Clint and I started talking about it and mentioned to them that if they wanted to put their beds in the same bedroom and have the other bedroom be a play room, we could do that. Abbie wasn’t too crazy about it at first, she was worried they wouldn’t know whose toys were whose, or that she couldn’t still get private time in her room to play, but we sorted it all out and they wanted to do it. So last night for over 4-1/2 hours, I did this. By. Myself. All the toys that were in Abbie’s room were moved to Meggie’s bedroom, Meggie’s bed and dresser were brought into Abbie’s room. So I still have some organizing to do in the new toy room, but for the most part it’s done and they loved it last night. They must have laid in there in their beds last night for 15 minutes talking and giggling. Sweet sound.

So tonight I need to finish up organizing, but I will definitely have time for my workout. So last night wasn’t a lost cause for exercise when I was moving furniture and toys and vacuuming and all that.

I am so proud of myself this week. The workouts and eating and everything have been amazing. I just feel so great. I can’t get over myself. If I didn’t have Jenn & Elizabeth doing the 6-week thing with me I definitely think I would be done for…so thank you ladies!!! Karen ~ The only thing you need for doing the TBL DVD is small hand weights. I have a mat I use for floor exercises, but it’s not a necessity. And even the weights aren’t..you could use some bottles of water or soup cans if you wanted. There’s no equipment needed. It’s all lunges and jumping jacks and lunges, and cruches, and lunges, and LuNgEs, and LUNGES…your butt will hate you. But it’s so worth it.

The nutritionist for The Biggest Loser was on the Today show Wednesday morning and said something that I loved hearing. You always hear that 1-2 lbs. of weight loss per week is where you should be. The healthy amount. He said on there that when you are eating properly, and really working out as they do on the show, 1 lb. a DAY of weight loss is not a bad thing. If it were more than 1 lb. per day, he would say ease up a bit. I thought that was great. Especially when you are 100 lbs. ore more overweight as I was when I started this, you KNOW you can lose more than that so easily when you first start out doing this. And truthfully, how long are the huge losses like that going to last??? So have at it people!!!!

I updated my challenge page with todays workout. I did my TBL workout, and got on Lippy for 11 minutes and she started making a weird thumping noise in the back end. Lost is on tonight, so Clint wants to wait till tomorrow night after work to see what is wrong with it. I got 11 minutes in on it and burned 198 calories. Not too bad for a small amount of time and a small additional exercise along with my Biggest Loser one.

Still not much to talk about tonight I guess, everything is going really well though…food, water, exercise, everything…I have taken a ‘no-scale’ vow, so I can’t get on until Monday.

Not a real exciting day, so I’ll leave you with this…

I updated my Challenge page for todays exercise/workout. I kicked ass boo-tay (for Jenn) today. I did my TBL workout as soon as I got home (40 minutes), then I went for a 2 mile walk OUTSIDE…so nice (33 minutes), AND I did 30 minutes on Lippy. I earned a smooth 12 activity points

Two posts in one day. One way to tell I’m on track.

Today was an inspirational one for me. The changes I’m making in myself seem to be trickling down the family line in my house. I did my The Biggest Loser (which will be known as TBL from here on out) workout DVD and started with the very first workout, which is described as being a warm-up, then a low-intensity (my ass) 25 minute workout, and then a 10 minute cool down/stretch. (The link above, for ‘Challenges’ is now updated for this along with an explanation of the new challenge I’m doing along with Jenn from Against the Odds (her link is on the right)). They describe the workout as low-intensity. I friggin can’t wait to see what part of my body falls off when I do the high-intensity.

You know when you wear courderoy pants and they have the ’swish swish’ sound? Tonight my ass is making the ‘damn damn damn’ sound with each step I take. I have learned today that there are more ass muscles than I had previously known existed. Just wanted to see how many times I can successfully use ‘ass’ in this post.

So, to explain the Monkey see, Monkey do, title and the trickling in the family…

I did my workout…we made a wonderfully delicious and healthy dinner…shish-ka-bobs on the grill. This was our first attempt at these, and they were un-freakin-believeable:

They had lean stew meat (from our own cows…the dead ones of course…sorry that was bad), potatoes (which I didn’t eat), red peppers, onions, zucchini, and mushrooms. Man were they unbelieveably good.

Then, after dinner I’m cleaning up the dinner dishes and the usual house mess, when I hear Lippy. I had assumed it was Abbie as she loves being on Lippy. Nope. I walk in my room where Lippy lives and there is Clint!!! I was so excited! Of course, he’s skinny and in shape anyways, does like 70 flights of stairs per day (not exaggerating) at his work, but I was just so tickled that he saw me working out earlier and took it upon himself to give it a whirl. He did awesome And can I just tell you that it made me feel even better about my workout on Lippy when the man who is in such great shape got off of her and was soaking wet and couldn’t do the intensity on her as high as I keep it set for myself. Makes me feel like I AM getting in shape

Then we go out to the living room and this is what we find:

How friggin cute is that???? Meggie doing crunches with Nubby (the ball). She’s only 3, mind you, but to see that what I do makes a difference with everyone else in the house has really motivated me.

One thing I absolutely LOVE about TBL DVD is…these are REAL people. They are not skin and bones, they smile when they are having fun, not because they had Botox and their faces are frozen in a smiling position. They don’t have perfect balance. They don’t keep in perfect rhythm with each other. They DO struggle!!!! It was awesome! I feel so intimidated even in my own living room working out with little skinny minnies that do it perfectly with the perfect smile on their perfect face while moving their perfect bodies just perfectly. gag. This DVD is REAL. When I’m burning and can’t take anymore, SO ARE THEY.

I’m telling you, for those of you who talked about Matt being a cry-baby on the show, do this workout. I swear to you, while doing the lunges (Jenn you were SO right) there was a moment where I literally could have just cried. It hurt SO badly and you want to keep going, but your body just won’t let you.

/ end commercial

I just coughed and my tummy cried. I’m gonna hurt tomorrow.

Have you ever watched WE (Women’s Entertainment) channel on TV??? I was watching it the other day and saw a preview for a show called ‘Secret Lives of Women’. There are several topics this show covers but this one in particular was on eating disorders. So I DVR’d (like TiV0) it so I could watch it later on.

One woman was an overeater. Would order enough food for 5 people from a fast food drive through and eat it all herself in her car while washing it down with a Diet Coke.

Another lady was Anorexic. She has really low self-esteem, you could tell, and her husband was a jerk, but that’s beside the point. If she didn’t feel she did something well enough that day, she would punish herself by only allowing herself a glass of water for lunch.

The last lady was what they call an exercise bulemic. She would binge and then exercise for 3-4 hours a day just to burn off what she binged on.

What struck me when I watched this show, that I never thought I would realize, is that I had something in common with every single one of the women. No, I don’t order through the drive through in extremes, in fact I haven’t had fast food in so long that I couldn’t even tell you the last time I got something. But there were other things about this woman (who has lost a ton of weight now, btw) that were so me. Even the anorexic lady. I could sense her low self-esteem and know EXACTLY how she felt. I go to extremes as she had, but for some reason I still have the weight. The exercise bulemic was alot like myself also in the way that she CONSTANTLY thought about the calories she was taking in. Every bite. Every glance at food, she knew the calories in it and how long she would have to work out to burn it off if she ate it. These three women were all so different from the next in so many ways, but it all felt like me. Me in the fat suit, me the boney skinny woman I know is in here somewhere, and me the exercise-aholic that can’t get my mind off food and calories.

It has seemed to consume me as of late.

I did work out yesterday unlike I had in a very long time. I did 16 minutes on Lippy, and then 16 minutes of various cardio and weights. For those 16 minutes I did 1 minutes of jump rope, 5 minutes of crunches on my exercise ball and 3 arm exercises with my 3 lb. weighted balls while on my ball, and then 10 minute The Biggest Loser workout that is in the new book.

I bought the book (The Biggest Loser diet/exercise thing (that’s not the actual title, just don’t have it in front of me)), by the way. Love. It. It’s got awesome tips, exercise and food ideas, a great workout to follow and some great recipes. It’s amazing!!

Well, I am working from home today, so I need to get some more finished, and then work out again…

Oh one last note. I’m done with coffee. Holy Moses. I got SO friggin dehydrated after about 2 weeks of drinking it…of course I had lowered my water intake because I was drinking coffee more, so I’m sure that didn’t help, but I have gone back to water. Water. WATER.

Clint, the girls and I went grocery shopping last week. That sentence alone is scary. We ALWAYS spend more when the entire family goes…I like to go alone. Faster and cheaper. Anyways, I’m pushing the cart, we’re filling it up, and next thing you know, Clint is like 500 feet behind me. I stopped and waited for him to catch up. First thing he says to me, ‘Is your sugar getting too low?’ Uh, no. He kinda shoots me an odd look. (When my sugar gets too low I get kinda shaky, but I go 100 miles an hour because I feel really out of control…so that was his suspicion)… Next isle over, he’s behind again. Don’t men know you need to get in and out FAST with kids?? Again, he catches up. He asks me what’s wrong? Not a thing. Here, forgetting to tell him, I like to use my shopping as a quick workout. Why on earth should I stroll through the isles of the store all sexy-desperate-housewife-like when I can fly through there, buttocks tight, and do me some speed walking??? I guess I have been doing it for so long now, it didn’t occur to me that I was even doing it. I was just getting annoyed that he was slowing me down.

Now I just wonder what people are thinking of me as my hair blows in the wind I create as I fly through the isles. Man. Wonder if I look like I’m on crack.

Day 2 of ‘get-my-butt-back-on-track’ went really well.

I’m hooked on coffee. Hated it until 2 weeks ago. Then after having Hazelnut flavor, loving it, and now drink it quite a bit, I don’t have much of an appetite. Found out caffeine can do that for ya…caffeine…lovely and legal drug.

Crocheting. I’m hooked. no pun intended. I have recently re-learned crocheting and now find myself keeping my hands busy and they don’t put munchies into my mouth as often. So now I’m constantly making something, and undoing it, redoing it, then having Abbie ask me to make her a horse blanket for one of her 5,000 toy horses, and Meggie asking me to make her a headband. They are adorable. The crocheting thing is a great ‘take-your-mind-and-hands-off-fo0d’ kinda hobby. After I master it, I’m going to try knitting. Knitting just seems like fun with all the needles you gotta use and all.

This is your brain…this is your brain on caffeine and crocheting needles. My house is gonna get pretty scary. Maybe I’ll crochet a ‘cozy’ for my coffee pot. (PLEASE tell me you know I’m kidding).

I had a really sweet e-mail sent to me the other day on the pictures I had posted a week or two ago (you can still scroll down to see ‘em)…the lady who e-mailed me said she can’t see how I want to lose close to 100 lbs. still. That I don’t look as though it would be possible for me to lose that much…that was such an awesome compliment to hear, but believe me, it’s there. Here’s to, as Elizabeth put it, a sexy 2006!!! I can already tell people are looking for some motivation for the New Year. I have had close to 100 hits today! This is gonna be a great year, I can feel it!!!

Euh. That’s my nickname. Among others. Did I ever mention that here before?? Euh (pronounced E as in the letter and uh rhyming with ‘duh’…euh) has stuck with me since my little brother (2 years younger) was able to say my name. Instead of Lisa it would come out Euh. Most of the family still calls me that, except for my Grandma who calls me Lynna (my middle name is Lynn)…well she did until her stroke, now she calls me whatever name comes to her first…and my favorite uncle has always called me ’stretch’…cuz I’m 6′0″ tall and passed up much of my family at a young age.

NO clue what all that rambling has to do with, cept for explaining ‘Euh’ in the title.

I am officially back on track. Today is day 3. I can tell you the weight gain I had over the holiday weekend was substantial. Actually it was from about a week of doing and eating whatever the hell I wanted. Just a tip, when trying to lose weight, that attitude is NOT helpful. I am serious when I say I gained nearly 10 lbs. in just over a week. I know that my ‘time’ was here as well, so that was probably 4 lbs. of it, but I really and truly let loose and had a ‘I don’t care’ kinda attitude for awhile, and it was a nice break from the stress of worrying about it all the time, but obviously that kind of attitude can also cause alot of damage.

Good news is, as of this morning I have already lost about 8 lbs. of it So I’m tickled.

There’s a few more things I wanted to write about, but have since gone blank on it all, so I’ll post again later if it comes to me

Christmas was amazing. Christmas Eve was at our house, full of family, alcohol and fun Christmas morning was just so exciting. We all had a blast. Spent the entire day in our jammies and played. Today, more of the same, but today, as an added bonus, we took showers.

Among other things, Clint and the girls got me a pair of 3 lb. weighted balls (like the WATP balls) and a Pilates/yoga mat that I wanted. To my disappointment, Keith Urban was NOT under the tree. The mat and balls however will have to do in taking Keith’s place. The mat is alot thinner than I had actually pictured a yoga/pilates mat to be. But if it stops my tailbone from bruising again, I’ll be happy.

Back to work tomorrow and back on track tomorrow as well. I’m sure I’m not alone, but this weekend was NOT full of good choices. I swear to you, I feel like I gained 15 lbs. over the weekend. I’m not kidding. I can even feel it in my face. I spent the entire day today with my head slightly raised up (as if I was looking up a tad) while talking to Clint so he wouldn’t notice if my face had gained or not. I’m sure it’s not that bad, but bloated/heavier I do feel. It’s also ‘that time’ again too…tomorrow or Wednesday to be exact, so I’m SURE that isn’t helping either. What can a girl do?

Tomorrow is back on program and FULL of exercise. Cuz I have my Biggest Loser workout DVD that I have been scared of since the first night I tried it…I swear it growls at me every time I peek at it…I have DVR’d a TON of awesome shows off of FitTV which will keep things spiced up a bit as well. Then there’s Lippy. Poor Lippy. She has been in the same position for about, hmmm…can’t remember when…guess I should have at least rolled her to her other side or something if I was going to ignore her for so long. I’ll make up for it this week.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well!!! It’s time to get back to reality with me…we got some work to do and Christmas Calories to burn!!!

We got our entire house cleaned and ready today. Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, my family and Clint’s dad and step-mom are coming over, and I can’t believe our house is ready. I’m a last-minute kinda girl…like I’m still cleaning and/or getting myself ready as guests are arriving. Not THIS year!! I’m stoked.

So I won’t be here I’m sure until at least late Christmas day if then even, so I wanted to wish you all a wonderful

MERRY CHRISTMAS