Inferno Day 1

Today was day one of the 5 Day Inferno from my TurboFire workout and it was awesome!  Breakfast was an egg and turkey bacon sandwich with tomatoes.  Got my morning started just right.  Then I had a snack of a banana and a handful of almonds.  The plan called for walnuts but I don't like walnuts, so almonds did the trick.  Lunch presented my first temptation.  We had a big department meeting and lunch was provided for us.  I came armed and ready to resist the standard boxed lunch from Panera or Corner Bakery.  Then the lunch trays were brought in.  Oh man, it was MEXICAN FOOD!  Why would they do this to me?  Anyone that knows me well knows that I die for Mexican food.  Or maybe I live for Mexican food.  Ok, I LIVE AND DIE for it.  Trays of chicken, ground beef, tortillas, tostadas, chips and salsa, cheese...  But I was good, I sat and watched everyone devour their lunch while I ate my little salad with scallions and tuna.  I got a few weird stares.  One lady even looked at me with pity and went "awww".  But I proudly announced that I had challenged myself and my friends to no takeout/fast food this week.  I held my head high, and guess what, I felt great when it was all said and done!

Snack was a chocolate Shakeology.  Then I did my workout, ChaLEAN Extreme Burn Circuit 1.  Followed by my dinner of honey mustard chicken and steamed broccoli with parmesan.  I feel light and satisfied :)

Time to get a good night's sleep!

The Four Ifs

Jim Rohn is my favorite motivational speaker, everything he says just makes so much sense to me and really motivates me.  Here is a passage from one of his audio cds that I wanted to share.

The four ifs that make life worthwhile:

#1 - Life is worthwhile if you learn.  Life is worthwhile if you know.  What you don't know WILL hurt you.  Ignorance is not bliss.  You've got to have learning, information, in order to exist, let alone succeed.  Life is worthwhile if you learn from your own experiences, negative or positive.  We learn to do it right sometimes by first doing it wrong.  Life is worthwhile if you pick up the information, whether it's from negative or positive experiences.  Here's something unique about a negative experience, it could turn out to be positive.  Here's what we call it, a positive-negative.  So don't be afraid to try, don't be afraid to fail, don't be afraid to make a mistake, because that could be the greatest period of learning.

Life is worthwhile if we learn from other people's experiences.  No use confining yourself just to your own learning, your own experiences.  Learn from other people, negative or positive.  Too bad failures don't give seminars, they would be very valuable.  Now we don't want to pay them so they don't give seminars.  The information would be valuable.  If a guy's messed up his life for 40 years you have to say "John, would you spend a day with me? And I'll bring my journal and take good notes.  Teach me for a day.  Good lookin' guy like you, beautiful family, and you threw it all away.  Teach me for a day how you messed it all up."  And you just take good notes.  Sure enough, the things that messed up his life you may think "wow I'm doing a bit of that, I better make some changes."  So learn from someone else's experiences, negative or positive.  I say we learn 3 ways, here's how you learn.  By what you see, pay attention.  Next by what you hear, be a good listener.  And in that I say be a selective listener.  Don't let anyone just dump anything into your mental factory.  Next we learn from what we read.

#2 - Life is worthwhile if you try.  You can't just learn, now you've got to try something to see if you can do it.  Try to make a difference, try to make some progress, try to learn a new skill, try to learn a new sport.  Attempt, try.  Doesn't mean you can do everything, but there's a lot of things you could do if you just try.  If you don't get it the first time, you have to try again.  Ingenuity, try it another way. Keep trying till you find a way.  Try to win the game.  See if you can be best, see if you can score more points.  Try your best, give it every effort.  Why not go all out?

#3 - Life is worthwhile if you stay.  You've got to stay from spring till harvest.  Some people plant in the spring, leave in the summer.  Or the guy builds a foundation then he leaves it, goes off and builds another foundation.   He's got these foundations scattered across the country.  Never stayed to put up the walls and the roof and finish something.   If you've signed up in the spring, stay till the harvest.  If a team is behind 30 points in the 3rd quarter, they don't say, hey looks like we're gonna lose, we're out of here.  So if you've signed up to play the game, play till it's over.  See it through.  If you signed up to watch the game, watch till it's over.  That's good practice.  Sometimes we need not just the results but the practice.

#4 - Life is worthwhile if you care.  If you care at all you'll get some results.  If you care enough, you can get incredible results.  Care enough to make a difference, care enough to turn somebody around, care enough to start a new enterprise, care enough to change it all, care enough to be the highest producer, care enough to set some records, care enough to win.

5 Day Inferno

So I’ve been in a bit of a workout and diet slump.  I spent the better part of 2010 being very disciplined.  I ate well, worked out 6 days a week.  In spite of having a full time job and being alone with Novali, I made it work.  For a whole year, I could count on one hand how many workouts I missed.  I was on fire!  And it was easy to eat well, because I’m a creature of habit.  I could eat chicken breast and veggies every night and it wouldn’t phase me.  Now that Syed and I are living together, I feel like I need to provide more variety with my meals, which means more time to plan and prepare foods.  So I’ve let myself slack a bit.  I’m still working out 5-6 times a week, but I’ve slacked on the eating part.  I wish I could say that working out was enough, but clearly it’s not.  I also think that I became comfortable in that I maintained a very steady weight all last year.  Again, because I was consistent in my efforts.  In the past few months, I’ve gained a few pounds. Not a lot, but enough where I’m feeling the effects. I’m experiencing that dreaded “none of my pants fit” feeling.  At least not the pants I’ve been wearing the past year.  And I do NOT want to go back to my pre-weight loss clothes.  So it’s time to re-evaluate and focus!!!  Hey, I’m human, I probably burned out on my efforts and it’s time to get serious and back on track so that I’m ready for the warm weather clothes!  Not to mention, so that I feel healthy and confident.  

Starting tomorrow, I am going back full force to my favorite workout program ChaLEAN Extreme. Chalene didn’t let me down the first time around, and I’m sure that if I focus on my eating, I will be back at my goal weight in no time!

In addition to that, I’ve challenged myself and friends to a week of no fast food/take out.  To help me with that, this week I will be following the 5 Day Inferno meal plan that came with my TurboFire.  It’s an eating plan that is designed to cleanse your body and change your daily eating habits.  I will be doing it with Syed Ahmed and Grisel de la Torre. Grisel will be following the actual TurboFire 5 Day Inferno workout schedule.   Syed is in the middle of P90X and will follow his regular routine.  

I’ll be blogging all this week about my meals and workouts.  I appreciate any support and motivation!  If anyone wants to join me for the next 90 days, we can help keep each other accountable!

I took my starting stats this morning on my digital scale and they were:

Body Fat: 25.3%

Body Muscle: 41.8%

I will take my before pictures and measurements tonight.  Now it’s off to the grocery store to get everything I need for the week!

Personal Development is for Losers...

I used to think this way.  I would look at the personal development/self-help section in the bookstore and laugh, thinking that the people reading those books were people that couldn't manage their own lives so they had to turn to a book for help.

Now I realize that the people reading those books are leaders, go-getters, ambitious, open-minded people who are SMART enough to recognize that life is about continuous learning (or at least it should be) and that we don't know it all.

In the past 5 months I've learned more from personal development books and audiobooks than I have in years!  So think outside of the box and nourish your mind. Find books that relate to your job, career, hobby, organization, motivation... There's something for everyone!

Some of my favorites (see I've read 7 books in 5 months that I never would have given a second thought to a year ago!):

Eat That Frog - Brian Tracy
Goals - Brian Tracy
The Art Of Closing The Sale - Brian Tracy
Art Of Influence - Chris Widener
Crush It! - Gary Vaynerchuck
The Secret - Rhonda Byrne
The Slight Edge - Jeff Olson
CarSmart (audio series) - Chalene Johnson
and currently reading Failing Forward by John C. Maxwell

The Slight Edge Mentality

I’ve finished listening to The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson (for the 3rd time because I love it so much!).  The main thing that I took away from this book is that every single decision that we make, no matter how small, MATTERS.  So in terms of my health, it’s sooo easy to say “if I don’t work out today, it’s not going to matter in the long run.  It’s just 1 workout.”  Or “if I eat this Big Mac today, no big deal, it’s not going to make a difference.”  But the point of the Slight Edge is that it DOES make a difference.  Every little choice that we makes builds upon the last, and compounds over time.  It will either add up to something POSITIVE or something NEGATIVE.  Just like with working out.  So many people get on a fitness plan, then get discouraged when they don’t see results overnight.  I’m guilty of this.  I would go through phases.  I’d go to the gym, plug away on the treadmill, and then quit after a few weeks because I’d think, “this isn’t working.” What we have to learn is to be patient and take it one day at a time.  Every workout adds to the last, it may take a month, 2 months, 6 months, but it WILL happen with patience and CONSISTENCY!

I totally recommend The Slight Edge to everyone, no matter what your goals are, what your job is, go out and get it!  I like it on audiobook because I don’t have a lot of time to read, but I spend 2 hours in the car every day! 

http://www.slightedge.org/

Has anyone else read this?  What did YOU take away from it?

Full Circle - How I Lost 20 Lb. & Will KEEP IT OFF in 2011!

One year ago today, I was pretty much in the best shape of my life, and proud of it.  I’d gone from my heaviest ever at 128, to about 115.  Now to a lot of you, 128 might not seem like a lot, but keep in mind that I am barely 5 ft. tall.  128 was a lot of weight for ME.  

My best friend Grisel and I had been doing Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Slimdown, which consisted of 30 Day Shred, No More Trouble Zones, and Banish Fat Boost Metabolism.  We’d both had amazing results and as of 1/1/10, I’d lost about 12-15 lb. We were ready to step it up.  So we did our research, well SHE did the research, and found a program called ChaLEAN Extreme.  She purchased it for me for Christmas, and that was the beginning of a total life change for BOTH of us.  I started it on 1/1, and I was hooked.  Chalene Johnson is a phenomenal trainer and I loved working out with her!  This program changed my body, I lost another 5 lb., doesn’t sound like a big deal but it was to me!  But what amazed me is how STRONG I felt!  It transformed my body.

Even better was that I could do it all at HOME!!!  I’m a busy mom, at that time I was a SINGLE mom working full time, with a 2 hour commute.  It was just me and Novali.  Which meant it was not realistic for me to go to the gym.  So what I would do was, I’d come home after work, start a quick dinner, and workout while dinner cooked.  I had a tiny place so it was easy for me to keep a eye on everything.  Novali had dinner first, and then I would eat after my workout.  It was the only way for me to be able to balance it all.  And I was determined.  

After ChaLEAN I went on to do several more at home programs, including Insanity, P90X, and now TurboFire.  They kept me in great shape.  But ChaLEAN was the program that inspired me, and still it is my favorite.  It’s my soulmate workout.  

2 months ago I started TurboFire, also by Chalene Johnson.  I LOVE it.  But I’ve realized that the best workouts for me are the ones that incorporate a lot of resistance training.  I love to lift weights and my body responds better that way.  In the past few months, I’ve gained a few lb. back, and I’m determined to get back to where I was with ChaLEAN.  

So in honor of my soulmate workout, I’m going to come full circle for 2011.  I will continue TurboFire, but I am going to do the ChaLEAN Extreme/TurboFire Hybrid.  The best of both worlds!  I know that this will get me the results that I want…  Tomorrow morning I will take my before pics and measurements so that I can compare in 3 months and see how far I’ve come!