So I suck. I haven't posted in a week and I haven't worked out in a week either. Opps. I found out on Monday that my dress was already in! It was so shocking! It wasn't supose to leave Florida until June 18th! But here it is!!! So I thought on Monday "Ok, I'll work out every day this week just in case it doesn't fit" But when I'm stressed I eat soo much and have no motivation to work out. And we're having a lot of money problems right now so I've been really worried. When I was told my dress came in for some reason I got so worried it woudln't fit I couldn't even work out!

Well my mom and I drove up to Loveland this morning and it fits!!! Oh man was that a relief! I can breath better without it on a little lol, but I know I'll have no problem. I think I have about 5 lbs to go and I'll be sooo happy. There was a little snag on the front of the beads and tulle but when I find a seemstress I'll ask if she can fix it. :-) It's not haning up on my door. God I'm happy. (I can't believe it's a USA size 6!)

Then I went to the mail box and found 2 RSVP's AND............... My FI's ring is here! I ordered it this last Wednesday I couldn't believe it got here so fast. And I just used the free shipping. It is Titanium so when he gets off work tonight he'll come over and try it on. If it fits I can send it back to get engraved. YAY!!!!! Such a great day. I can't seem to copy the picture of the ring, and the pictures above are from my little sister's camera and it's not a great camera. I'm also having a hard time taking a picture of his ring so here it is on the website. http://www.titaniumkay.com/2nd-Generation-Tungsten-Carbide-Two-Tone-Wedding-Band-Ring-w-Grooves-P103791.html

I'll do the shred again either tomorrow or Monday, depending on the day, and since I'm off Monday for the holiday it seems like a good time to re-start my workout routine! :-)

oh man ...I just let all the BM's know FI's ring is in. one said "Oh thats great! When will yours be in??" :-(  FI doens't have any money to buy mine. What a buz kill.

I did it!!!!! I woke up this morning and did the video! I have a new work schedule (which I'm still trying to come to terms with) I used to work 8-6:30 Tuesday through Friday. I'd have to be up at 6am to leave by 7, since I work 36 miles from home. This is why all of my workouts had to be after work. I just couldn't bring my self to get up at 5am to do any sort of exercise besides breathing.

Well starting this week I'm working Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 10-6:30 and Wednesday 9-5:30. Some how I wasn't able to get up and work out the last two days but this morning (when I had to leave by 8am) I was able to get up and do it. I'm actually really proud of my self because I LOVE to sleep. When my alarm went off I just kept saying "get up, come one, lets go GET UP!!!!" lol

The work out was difficult. I have a hard time breathing when doing this level. I do have asthma which is both due to allergies, exercise and anything else that can agitate it. Just the shear fact that I'm doing cardio at all is fantastic. In School I was sooo miserable, that was before Advair (which I have a love-hate relationship with) and my asthma made me so sick and in gym I just wanted to crawl up in a ball and cry. When I started running a few years ago EVERY one was shocked, including me. I think I should keep in mind how far I have come since then, and not beat myself up when I can't do the workout just perfect, and without stopping for even a second. I'm getting better. I know I'm hard on myself.

I think the best advice I could give right now is that no matter how hard the video is KEEP MOVING! She says it a few times during the workout. And that I think is very important. Even when I think I'm about to die and I don't think I can do anymore, I keep going just not at such a huge impact. I don't stop, except for a couple seconds right before that jump and twist move. By that point I'm practically gasping for air.

As far as results. I don't see or feel any, in the sense of weight loss or inches lost. People around me say I look good, and that they can tell a difference but I really wonder if they're just saying it. I'll keep going, thats for sure.

I guess the real testament will be when my dress gets in.

We re-ordered a 6 (after the 10 fell off me) and at the body size I was then (2/14/09) they were going to need to take in the boobs and maybe let out the hips a tiny bit. My goal is for them to not have to let out ANY thing. I know there's nothing short of implants that I can do about the boobage lol. But my dress is already coming in 3 weeks before the wedding and I want them to have to do as little work as possible.

Ok, I've had a few people ask me about this. I finished it the day before Valentines Day so I can't remember every single element of it. I thought for sure I had posted about it but I don't see it in my categories so I might have just mentioned it here and there.

Basically it is a juice fast, you may also have heard it called The Lemonade Diet, The Syrup Diet or the Cayenne Diet. Now, if you haven't figured it out already....this diet consisits of lemon juice, grade B maple syrup and cayenne pepper. There is a very small book you can buy  that goes over any questions you might have, how to do the cleanse, and tips and advice. I had googled this SOOOOO much that by the time I did get to the book store I just sat in one of their chairs and skimmed through the whole thing in about 30 mins. The advantage to reading about it on-line is that you will come across MANY blogs that people have done to follow them through this. Also any advice, instructions, reasons, explanations, all of this is online for you and it's easy to find.

The only adivce I can give is to really prepare your self for doing this. Know that it is HARD, but that it is worth it. It's really big on washing the toxins out of your body, so if you don't believe you have toxins in your body either don't do it, or do it for the weight loss effects. Which is pretty much why I did it. I do believe there are toxins that can be built up but I really was doing this to stop drinking so much damn coffee, loose weight and feel better. The fast instructs you to drink only filtered water, use organic lemons (no using the lemon juice you buy from the store, for many reasons). I used the filtered water for the actual juice mix only, but then through out the day I drank tap water. Again this is up to you and if you think you are consuming toxins from the tap water drink only the filtered.

It does take time to prepare the juice mix. If you want the full benefits of this fast you should not make more than a days worth at once. If you make more than that some of the nutrients die. When I did it I would come home from work and make enough for the entire next day. I put it in 3 16 oz water bottles (roughly) which equaled 6 servings and split it up through out the day. You really need a fridge or some way of keeping the lemonade cold. You have to allow for enough time to actually squeez the lemons, this does take a while and again don't do more than a days worth. You also need Grade B Mable Syrup. It is a little expensive but you won't use more than one bottle. I can't remember how big my bottle was but it was $14.00 and I bought it at Whole Foods (I coulnd't find a single grocrie store that carried it.) You don't want to use the regular table syrup because Grade B has extra nutrients you really need (seeing as how this is THE only thing you are consuming). Also Cayenne pepper. This was really hard to get used to. Put in only 1/8th of a teaspon at first, then work up to more. The more you can tolorate the better. Please look up all of the benefits of this part, I know the peper has nutirents, it also helps your metabolisiam (or so we're told) and has some other good properties about it. Other than that you mix those three ingrediants with water and then drink lots of water on top of that.

If I remember right you are suposed to drink 6-12 servings a day. If you want to lose more weight stay at the low end of that, if your just detoxing stay on the high end. Also each serving calls for two table spoons of the syrup. I did one, again because I was doing it for weight loss.

The biggest thing I can warn you about is Day 3...This is where most people give up and I almost did. Apparantly this is true for smoking, drinking and thing you are addicted too (yes even food). But if you can get past that third day your in the clear. For me day 7 and 8 were also difficult but I'm not sure why. Not as bad as day 3. Also, DO NOT COOK FOR ANYONE! At LEAST during those first 3-4 days. Trust me, you will not be able to stop your self from nibbling on every thing and eventually giving up. This is in EVERY blog and website I read. People eating around you is difficult those first few days but after that it gets better. My sense of smell was AMAZING the entire time lol.

As far as energy. You will have plenty. I did at least, and this is also something I read a lot about. Most people keep up theri workout routine and reported having more energy and working out better because of it. I did use water with electrolights in it while working out but I don't think many do. I didn't get any headaches after the 3rd day, and I think those were due to the caffine withdrawl.

Oh,....I almost forgot about the laxatives. There are two. The first one is in the morning. You are supose to drink I think 16 oz of water with Sea Salt, A lot of sea salt. It tastes HORRIBLE and I only did it 3 times. And those three times were on my three days off. If you wake up early enough and give your self about an hour to hour and a half before leaving the house you'll be fine. This part is really gross. I'm sure it would have been worse if I had done it the first few days, but since I waited till about day 4,5,6 my insides didn't have much to get rid of lol. It's bassically water coming out. Lets say you normally leave your house at 7am, drink it by 5:30 - 5:45 and then you should be fine.

The laxative at night is a tea. The tea tastes good, and for some people have as different effects. For me I would take it at 9 and wake up at 2 0 3 am and have to REALLY use the bathroom. That would last at leave 15 mins (again I know this is gross) but it didn't bother me too much. Again you'd have to do a trail and error your self.

All in all I thought this was great. I will most likely be doing it again before the wedding, and I'm actually kinda excited to do it. Afterwords I craved the juice.Some people go on drinking it witj breakfast (I think the book even reccomoneds it). I know there are websites that help Ease you into the fast, that is not what I did, lol I just jumped right in. But at the end it's VERY important to do exactly what is rec before you start eating solid foods. They have a vegitarian option and a meat eater option. I used a combo. I didn't do the whole 10 days, I did 8 and then started the "ease out" for the last two days. Otherwise its 10 days with ONLY the juice and then you eas into it. One more thing I just remembered, they suggest using Orange Juice as your first "real day of eating". Orange juice has always upset my stomach but I thought I'd try it any way (I have this problem where I feel like I have to do every thing by the book.) and then I found out I'm allergic to it. I started getting little hives and my mouth was very itchy, and that was the onl;y thing I drank so I knew it had to be that. I switched to 100% pure squezed Grape Fruit Juice. I'd do 8 oz of water to 8 oz of juice. I loved drinking that.

Well, I'm sorry if there are any typos, and if it's not very clear jsut ask me. I'm at work and checking in pt's.

Good luck and please feel free to leave a comment. When you do I get an e-mail and I can e-mail you back directly 

I thought I'd make this a different post. I wanted to keep The Shred sperate.

I'm a little upset that I don't believe I've lost any weight at all. I was teetering between 122 - 125 and I don't think it's gone down at all. If anything after our Florida trip it's now between 125 and 126. I know some of that was retained water from the flight and alcohol and no workouts and lots a crab. But still disconserting either way. I also don't think I've lost any inches. I know it's only been 10 days of working out but come on! Give me some thing to work with. I think that's all I'm dissapointed with as far as the work out. I'm really trying to keep going and be positive but it's hard. I think part of my prbolem is tht I was at 137 or so a couple months ago. I did The Master Cleanse and lost 15 lbs!!! I only did it for 9 or 10 days, I can't remember right now, I think it's supose to be 14, anyway, I lost a lot of weight really fast. The best thing about it was I felt GREAT! I wasn't drinking coffee, I was sleeping soooo much better at night, I'd wake up long before my alarm (5:30am) I didn't have headaches, my allergies and asthma was better. I felt amazing. Then of course you slowly start eating and for me after a few days of eating really well it all kinda fell apart. I was still going to the gym every other day for 2 months. But then we went to Rome and it's been down hill until now. I'm doing this Shred video hoping I'll get back into things. BTW I only gained back 2-3 lbs. I did really good on it.

I hope I'll see results soon.

My goals: I bought "Making The Cut" By Jillian Michaels today and am about to flip through it. I'd like to try to follow some of the reciepes, but I don't have a lot of money right now, and I know some elaborate cooking at home can get expensive. I'll look through it to see what I can do. I'd also like to do what ever work out she has in there. And next week I'm going to start going to the gym 4 times a week. I hope with all of this working out I'll see some differences in my body.

My biggest issue (no pun intended) is my thighs and butt. Those are the HARDEST places for me, as most women, to loose weight. It drives me crazy. Of course all my first fat came right off my already too small boobs lol. My second issue is the backs of my arms. Have you ever seen "The Sweetest Thing" ? You know when they are looking in the mirror and Christina Apllegate is flapping her arm back in the air..." What is this???" lol THAT part. I know the exercises I need to do to get rid of it, but I'm not doing them. My FI said that just by loosing weight I'll notice that fat will start going away, and then to work on strenghening them. He also said that most of the workouts in Level one will help this as well.

Ok, I'm done venting. I feel a little better now. Even if no one reads this, I feel like someone is listening.

Ok, today was the first day of the 30 Day Shred. I'll log on each day to leave notes on how the day of exercise has gone. Now, I'm not sure if this is something you are supposed to do 30 days in a row. I kinda want to, I feel like I need to really kick my self into gear and not give my self a day off. However, I do know that you are suppose to give your mucsles a day off. We'll see...

So for day one, I got up before I had to leave for work. Which meant I had to be up no later than 6am. This isn't too bad. Thats normally when I get up anyway, and I was actually trying to talk my self into getting up at 4:45 to actually GO to the gym so that I didn't have to go after working 10 hours and driving one. But this will work out better. I think each session is only 20 mins. I say only, but man those 20 mins kicked my Ass!

I didn't really think I was that out of shape. I have been going to the gym quite a bit but obviously I wasn't challenging my self enough. With the first day of the video I found my weights are too heavy, and their only 5 lbs! But there are these side lunges you do while at the same time your doing shoulder raises! I could only do the first set with the weights and then after that I had to just do the side lunge and the shoulder raises without the weight. I know it's not as effective but I couldn't move my arms!! lol. For that exercize my legs didn't really hurt at all, but my arms sure did.

There is also a squat with weights where you lift the weights above your head. That was pretty difficult too. I can do bisep exercizes all day long but I apparantly have NO shoulder muscles! The rest of the work out wasn't too bad. Of course it's not easy, I was really sweating. Plus on Wednesday I had gone to the gym and was on the eliptical for 47 mins and did some leg machines. And for any one who has ever worked out before you know, the next day isn't so bad, it's the one after that when you really feel the sorness. So I was already sore from Wednesday.

Now, we'll just have to wait and see if I do this tomorrow morning or if I'll do it every other day. The only problem with that is it will take 60 days! Hmm...maybe thats why it's called the 30 Day Shred, maybe we are suppose to do it every day. I'd also still like to go to the gym a couple times a week. I am paying monthly for it anyway and I'm not entirely sure 20 mins is enough for me.

I'll be back tomorrow with more!

Oh, I guess I should mention a few things about the DVD. It is good, and Julinne Michaels really tells you how it is. She mentions a few times that you can't results without REALLY trying and that YES it is hard but come on! Let do it! One annoying thing I've found about the DVD is that you can't skip the begining where she goes on and on and on about the DVD. So my suggestion if you really only have 20 mins is to start it, then get ready, get your water, your shoes, and pull your hair up, by then she should be done talking and you'll be able to get to the DVD menu.

Also I highly suggest you get the lightest weights you can to start (3 lbs?) Even though you may be able to lift more than that, try it and you'll see why.