Tizz the Season

         'Tis the season folks! How are you feeling about the holidays? It's Christmas Eve and I am honestly one of the happiest people right now. I have traveled northward to Seattle and am visiting my mother and her side of the family. Last night I went and saw the movie Hugo with two of my favorite aunties and my mother and her boyfriend. I spent the night at my aunts' house where my cousins also visited and stayed over. Tonight I am going to my mom's parent's house for home made pizza and gift exchanges. Then even more northward to my dad's parent's house, the place where I was raised, the people I was raised by. I cannot wait to see my grandma Jo and grandpa Bill! I miss my kitty, Ginger and our dog, Maggie. I can't wait to sit by the fire and eat more cookies...

Speaking of cookies... 

I am not doing too well with my sweets so far this weekend. It is Christmas so I am letting myself off the hook on this one, and I think you should too. There is no reason to feel bad about the food decisions you make, especially if you have been working hard previously! I didn't even know I liked cookies this much until every place and person I visit have tubs full of delicious, different kinds sitting all over their kitchen tables. I try to resist but I have to try them and then when you try them you know how good they are and it can be hard to stop! I want to commit to working out more after this weekend and just let myself relax for the time being. My grandparents live a couple blocks from a 2 miles long dike, that separates Padilla Bay from some of the farm land. My goal is to at least run half of it so I will still get two miles in, but maybe run the whole thing and get 4.

Just to add a tiny bit more cheer I had to post this adorable picture of Dexter the worried cat.
He constantly has a look of worry and concern on his face, but he is a sweetie and quite the soft kitty.

 

Happy Holidays to All!

Work-out of the Day & Results

        Today I made up a work-out for myself and it went so incredibly well and felt so good that I thought I would share. It focuses mainly on core with a little bit of legs included. I feel like the targeted muscle groups complimented each other well with each exercise. The only thing I might change next time is paying more attention to which PLANE my body is moving in, because I realize that all of these are sagital.

        For my warm-up I did a few minutes of jump-roping, butt kickers followed by high knees, and over-unders (one leg at a time pretend to step over a rope/fence/hurdle, then continue to pretend to duck under it)

The Workout:
-1 legged squat (with assistance of resistance band if needed) 10 each leg

-Stability ball knee tucks 15 each

-Kettle bell sumo squat (hit floor with bell each time & pull kettle bell up to chest with high elbows) 10 each

-Stability ball crunches 15 each

-Back extensions 10 each

-Bicycle crunches 20 each


I went through each exercise then gave myself a 30 second rest, before continuing on to another round.
I completed 5 rounds, I recommend completing at least 3.

Tips:
>The first round get a feel for each exercise, than push yourself a little harder each round.
>Music always helps to boost an exercise.
>Remember quality over quantity: It is very important to have good form over how many reps you do!
>If something hurts go lighter/easier. Modify things for yourself as you need to.


         Also, I would like to share some more results from my peer on peer 'personal training' sessions, because I am ecstatic about my results!
         My goals as of November 21st were for weight loss, strengthen my push-ups and pull-ups and target my thighs. I had 22.32% body fat (I like to measure it this way, versus saying 77.68% lean body mass, I do know better if I were speaking to a client)...moving on...my measurements/assessment results were as follow:

Arm	10.75
Chest	38.5
Waist	30
Hip	42.5
Thigh	26.5

Sit & Reach straight back		4.5"
Sit & Reach bent back		7.5"
Pushup (Knees)		14
Pullup (w/ Green Band)		5

As of the week of December 4th (just 3 weeks later) I couldn't believe the results I was already seeing + my body fat percentage decreased to 18.65%!

Arm	12.5
Chest	38
Waist	29.5
Hip	42.5
Thigh	25
Sit & Reach straight back		6.7"
Sit & Reach bent back		11.25"
Pushup (Knees)		21
Pullup (w/ Green Band)		10

This definitely motivates me to stay on track and keep up the work! I highly recommend taking your own measurements and doing assessments to keep track of your progress to be able to see your results on paper as well as in the mirror. I am happy to help guide you through any of it, if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask!

I'm going to add another new years resolution: to decrease my body fat % even more! (not sure which percentage I want to get down to yet) Maybe I'll do some research over my vacation.

Observations & Resolutions

        This weekend was my first time doing the promo model thing. I gave a sampling of Robert Mondavi's wine selection, including a Brut sparkling wine, Cabaret from his private selection, a Chardonnay from his private selection, and his standard Woodbridge Chardonnay. It was lots of fun and insanely boring all at the same time. I love interacting with people, plus educating myself (and others) about the wine was lots of fun, but time also passed along quite slow. I gave this demo at an Albertsons on a Friday night during the holidays Most people seemed to be in some type of a hurry and just about everyone wants to be in the shortest check-out line and they all seem to be willing to check every single line for each of their lengths before committing to one line. It was fun to look in people's carts to see what they were buying. I noticed one older man carried a cook book with him, it had lots of little book marks throughout it. He asked me for a sample of wine and I wanted to ask him what he was making, but another patron came up to sample and the man was kindly on his way. I got to thinking about the job itself, I was literally hired on the way I look to be to able to promote the sales of alcohol. This led to me thinking about how many things in my life and our society are based on our looks. I wonder what opportunities I have received or will receive in the future based on my looks, and I'm curious what opportunities people miss out on because of their looks. I hadn't thought about it before, but being that we live in a society where media rules so much and we are constantly told that we need to be 'good looking' it just makes me think twice about the way we are treated now. It is very interesting to me and I'm glad that I have realized it and can step back and analyze. I love analyzing. I love people watching. It is all so interesting to me...

       
        Today is the first day of week 12 at school. Then we have a one week 'Christmas Vacation' and once we return I only have 12 more weeks of school. Now that I am getting down the regular exercise, etc. I think I might want to play around with my diet a little more. We have been talking a lot about paying attention to the food we eat and how it makes us feel. As far as energy--how long it lasts, how full it makes us feel (for how long), etc. I have been paying attention to those things, but I haven't made any changes where I know I could. For example my breakfasts almost always leave me hungry two hours later. Especially when I drink smoothies in the morning. I know the reasons why though and I think I'm going to make this a new years resolution. To change my eating habits to be more beneficial to my overall day.



        Speaking of new years resolutions what are some of yours? I really am curious to know! Everyone always has their own personal ones. Are they realistic, silly or serious, maybe both? What do you plan on doing to accomplish these resolutions? Please let me know :)

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Patterns + Thank yous

         What a long weekend...Last week I lost about 2 and a half pounds again. I am excited about it. I remember at the beginning of school I was talking to a girl in my class and she was telling me about how when she gets into a regular work-out routine her body consistently loses weight every three weeks or so. For the longest time I was losing weight very unevenly following a two one or two weeks on, one week off schedule. Now that I have consistently been working out every week and eating, better than I think I ever have, for about two months now maybe I am starting to see some patterns. It seems like I lose a solid two or so pounds then float around that weight for a few weeks and drop down again. I'm curious to see what it will all map out as when my six months of school are complete.

        If you like to count your calories, log your food, or have a place to score your weight, etc. etc. I would recommend "Calorie Count". There are so many online websites where you can access food databases, etc for free, but this is the only one I really know because it is the one I use. I don't really log my food, exercise, etc. online but I like the cool 'weight loss goal map' I've created and I log my weight here and it shows me a graph on the patterns of my weight loss. I think it's pretty cool.

        I have had a few people lately tell me that they have been reading my blog and very much enjoy it and/or find it inspirational. I just want to thank all the people out there reading this blog. I guess the point of a blog is for people to read them and I know I find personal enjoyment keeping up on other people's lives via reading their blogs, etc., but it's kind of flattering having people tell me that they're reading my blog. I sincerely hope I can inspire you to take the next step to do whatever it is you want to accomplish next, because I know you can do it! Never hesitate to ask me for anything either, even if I don't know you. I like meeting and talking to new people.

        Anyway, not much else new in my life. I plan on doing a little more cooking this week (hopefully). Two weeks to Christmas! I hope you all enjoy the holidays.

Dreams

             Today I decided to sleep in and come to school an hour late, I knew I could spare the time and I was just so tired this morning. Lately I've been having very vivid and bizarre dreams. They seem to be either extremely realistic in the situations during the dream or else my feelings from during the dream carry over to when I wake and leave me feeling weird. As a child I always had insanely vivid dreams. I would always remember my entire dream and wake-up to tell my grandparents in the morning. They thought I was making up stories because I was so detailed in describing them. Yet even now I still remember some of the dreams that I had as a child, I can still see in my mind the images/situations that have now become difficult to describe out loud. I used to keep a dream journal, but I stopped a long time ago. Being with all the dreams I've been having lately I am considering starting one again. I'm debating about making some more posts about them on this blog but I don't want to stray too much from my main focus for this goal. But it is a pretty broad spectrum, we'll see. Do you find dreams interesting and would you want to read about them here?

             I'll share a little about one dream I've had in the past that reconnected to a dream I had last night. Awhile ago I originally had a dream where the setting was in this giant house. I was with a group of people and we were splitting up, kind of exploring the house. The feel of the dream was heavy, scary even. As if we were running away and hiding from something in the house. Come now, I do not remember if the house was haunted or if there were actually people in the house or how the situation went down, but I know the feeling was 'heavy'. As the dream went on I was with one other girl and we found in the back corner of an upstairs bedroom (this house was huge, 3 stories!) walk-in closet that there was another door. Through this door it lead to a series of doors and corridors and I believe even a stair case, that was hidden and lead to other parts of the house.

              I've had dreams about this house off and on in different dreams/situations and even a repeat dream a couple times, but if it was a repeat dream I knew I had been there before in my dream, in my dream I knew I had already dreamed this, I knew about the secret section of the house, but not always could I find it, but I still knew it was there. I don't remember the last time I had a dream about this house, I feel like it was months ago (would know if I still kept a dream journal). Anyway, last night I had a dream that I can barely remember now but I remember being with this little girl in a bathroom of a very run down and cold house. The bottom of the door of the bathroom came up about a half inch off the floor and we could see men's boots come up and stand outside the door, two people. I remember feeling very scared and thinking about the back of the pantry way of 'our house'. I can see the pantry in my mind still. A narrow hallway looking place lined with shelves just filled with food, lots of canned items, with puffy jackets hanging by the opening. At the back of the pantry there was a door hiding behind more coats hanging and a broom and mop. I remember thinking of this door and knowing that it lead to the giant house, and in remembering that I felt some comfort. I knew I needed to get to that house to be safe and warm.

             A couple interesting facts I've learned about dreams:
       (You can easily find cool facts on Google)

>We only dream of faces that we already know.

We see real faces of real people that we have seen during our life but may not know or remember.

>The most common emotion experienced in dreams is anxiety.

Negative emotions are more common than positive ones.

 >The things people say to you in your dreams are not in fact what they might truly say to you, but are what you think they would say to you. What you think they feel about you, etc. So next time you're ready to get mad because your boyfriend said something mean to you in your dream, think twice...

Daunt

    So I lost a little under one pound last week when I was hoping to lose two and a half to three pounds, but I'm actually mostly okay with it. As much as I want to lose as much weight as possible, I also want to have a nice toned, fit body and that really only comes with muscle gains. Muscle weighs more than fat, therefore if I am gaining any muscle I am not going to see the weight loss I would like to and I may even see a gain. Weight is really only a number. No one else but myself cares about it. I'm going to try to keep a strict food journal until Christmas and if I can do that and continue exercising frequently throughout the week, including stretching and overall being productive and positive with the choices I make for my body, then maybe I will still let myself have that pizza the day after Christmas.

End of the Week

    I feel like this week has gone especially well for me. I worked out really hard most of the week to the point where I was sore most of the week, it felt so good! I kept a pretty strict food journal up til Friday night and then I stopped keeping track, but I think I still did pretty good at keeping myself in check. I have gotten into a good habit of packing myself little 'lunches' of my own food so I don't spend too much money or eat too much crap food.
  
     I had two photo shoots this weekend, kept really busy. They were both so fun. One was with a photographer I have worked with several times and very much enjoy shooting with. The second shoot was with a couple that both work as photographers together. It was different, but I loved it! They were so nice, friendly, and made me feel comfortable. They have a nice natural lit space set up in their apartment that seemed perfect for photo shoots. I'm excited to see the results from both.

     The rest of today I am going to go for a two mile run, do some studying for school and then go on a VS shopping spree tonight with their special card holder sale. I'm excited for this month, lots of new things coming about, friends coming into town, visiting family, making delicious food, etc. etc. The loom of the scale waits tomorrow morning and I am anticipating a good number...we'll see.

    I recommend relaxing your mind while still being productive the rest of today and start your week off awesome tomorrow. Go into it head strong, with a positive attitude. Next weekend will be here in no time...my how time flies. Here's to making the best of this week!