Saturday Morning Bootcamp

Guess what guys?  I went to my first ever Saturday Morning bootcamp class.  I’ve been going to Lyle’s class for quite some time, but I always go to the Tuesday and Thursday evening class.  I’ve planned on going to the 7 AM Saturday class many times, but always too lazy to get up.  Well on Friday, I was telling my co-worker about the wonders of the class and she agreed to try one with me.  I am NOT a morning person, so I got dressed in my workout clothes before I went to sleep Friday night and put my shoes at the foot of my bed.  When I got up, Nyah was still sleep, she didn’t even acknowledge that I was up and moving around.  I just laughed at her simple life.  When I got to class, my co-worker friend was already there.  We started with the warm up exercises and then did a lap.  But, not your regular lap around the track.  Lyle had a speaking engagement, so we had a substitute teacher who spiced it up a little.  For the first quarter of the track we did walking lunges, and then we skipped around.  I wondered how in the world do children skip for fun? …The grounds crew was cutting the grass on the track field, and my allergies were so flared up, I could barely breathe.  For the next portion we side shuffled, and for the last quarter we ran backwards down the track.  I felt like I was about to pass out, it was already hot outside, and all the grass flying just made it worse.  I struggled through the rest of the class, but my friend and I gave each other pep talks through the planks, jumping jacks, bicycles and leg lifts.  After 45 minutes of struggling to breathe, we took our victory lap, which was just a tired casual stroll around the track, and finally it was over.  We were both sweating and happy we were finished.  She said, you need to work out for 2-3 months before you even start this class just to be able to keep up.  I was running on an adrenaline high for about an hour, and then I came home crashed and took a much needed nap so that I would rested for my date tonight!

My Bucket List

This morning I woke up and saw an article about former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s  bucket list.  You know what a bucket list is, just like that cute little movie “The Bucket List“ with Morgan Freeman.  It’s a list of all the stuff you want to do before you die or in other words, “Kick the Bucket.”  I have a list of short term goals like, make my 5K to 10K podcast, make my Fitness DVD, pay off a credit card etc, etc.  But I’ve never made a list of cool stuff I want to experience.  So I started one….here are a few…

Anyway, writing out my bucket list gave me a whole list of reasons to keep living life to the fullest, because there’s so many things I haven’t experienced yet.  Today was a good day to make my list, because in my weight watcher meeting yesterday, we talked about setting attainable goals so that you have something to look forward to.  I told the leader about my recent frustrations, and she told me the simplest phrase that everyone has heard a million times.   “Take it one day at a time.”  I’ve always been a Big picture person (Egypt? Guinness Book?) But, with this whole weight loss thing, I can’t just say, I want to lose 100 lbs.  I have to make smaller goals like, I want to track my points/calories TODAY, I want to work out TODAY.  And that’s just what I did.  I followed the weight watcher motto “Bite it, Write it.”  I wrote down everything that went in my mouth.  AND I went to boot camp class.  It was so hot and humid, just being outside breathing in the thick muggy air was workout. Feeling a cool breeze was just a silly thought and far from reality.    We started out the class with Lyle’s favorite, the suicide runs.  Then jumping jacks, and push-ups and planks.  Then he asked, “are you ready for the workout the start?” right before he told us to run a lap around the field.  Let me tell y’all out of all the times I’ve worked out, I’ve never sweated this much…ever.  There was literally sweat on my eyelashes, that’s how much was pouring down my face.  I kept swatting at my shoulders, at what I thought was a gnat or a mosquito, but was really just sweat beads rolling down.  It was so gross, I mean my hair looked like I just got out the shower….  The running lap was followed by all kinds of leg lifts and ab exercises and at least 3 more laps.  I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes at him a couple times.  I didn’t care if I was the last around the track today, my main goal was not to pass to out.  Well, I finally finished my “victory lap” which was more like a crawl, and came home feeling like a champ! 

What Did Carli Eat Today?

B- Oatmeal, yogurt, half of an apple

L-Turkey Sandwich and side salad

S- Weight Watcher Multi-grain Ranch Chips (delicious) & 2 twizzlers from a co-worker

D-Turkey Leg, Cream Style Corn, and Green Beans that Mama made &  left over Birthday cake

Super Sweet 16

Today is my little sister’s Super Sweet 16th birthday.   I got up this morning with a to-do list much longer than I would have preferred for it to be.  But I guess I’ll back track, for the last week I felt kind of frustrated.  That’s why my blog was pretty quite, I guess I just felt stuck.  I almost canceled my Weight Watchers membership. I felt like the plan just wasn’t working for me.  But the truth of the matter is that I wasn’t working the plan….  My Little Sister asked me to go to vacation bible school and I’m glad I did, because I got a good word that I needed.  We talked about the Spiritual Armor of God.  Specifically, that day we discussed the Sword of the Spirit.  We talked about using God’s word as our offensive weapon (the sword).  God gave us all of the tools that we need to fight back.  Everyone has their own issue; my issue of course is struggling with the idea that I have to battle weight for the rest of my life.  I still haven’t fully accepted that I have to deal with this forever.  But, I left church feeling refreshed and renewed that God will help me fight my battle.   So, this morning I got up and went to the gym, I hadn’t been to the gym since last week when I went with my Shopping Cousin.   As I walked up the stairs to the indoor track, I got winded and out of breath.  Oh crap, I thought to myself, that can’t be a good sign.  I did some light stretches and turned on my Week 3 podcast.  Even though I didn’t exercise for more than a week, I refuse to go backwards.  If Week 3 killed me today, it was just going to kill me.  The first 90 second run was easy.  After the 3 minute run, it started to get a little tough, but I didn’t care, I kept pushing, as I thought back to the days where, I would look down and couldn’t see my lap over my stomach, or got out of breath bending over putting on my shoes.  I can’t go back there, it was just too miserable.  I also thought about Roni’s post called “Why I Keep Trying.” I pushed all the way through the whole running routine with no extra walks.  Every time I heard “Carli” say “ready for your next run?” I would say out loud, “Bring it on Baby, I got you, I’m ready!”  When I finished, I felt so proud, it was like I never missed a day.  Then it was time to get ready for the rest of the day.  I invited my new guy friend to the party, you know the guy that I mentioned before, let’s call him Mr. Man.  So, Mr. Man rode with me over my parent’s house while I helped my little sister get ready.  My Dad opened the door.  Oh boy, I thought to myself, this will be interesting.  Unfortunately, I had the leave Mr. Man downstairs by himself with Dad while I went up to help my little sister get dressed.  I said “Daddy be nice.”  To which my Father sternly replied “What does that mean?”   I tapped Mr. Man on the shoulder and said “Good Luck!”   He survived, even though I fed him to the wolves, LOL.  I later found out they talked about football and Lebron and other boy stuff.  …Anyway,  My little sister did it so big y’all.  She showed up fashionably late to her glow in the dark party. She had a grand entrance with an escort and even a balloon drop.  Can you believe it?!  She looked so fabulous!  That girl was rocking some HOT stilettos high heels, but you know they came off before the end of the night after all the dancing she did.  My Mama was so awesome to pull off the party of my sister’s dreams.  There were tons of overly-energetic teens dancing all night. Even us “old people” had such a great time!  After the party, we went to Uncle Bill’s pancake house, a local 24 restaurant, perfect for a late night meal.  Me and my Big Little Sister, and  Mr. Man chaperoned my little sister and the 16 friends and who joined her after party.  I told the hostess table for 20 people at 1 o’clock in the morning, she replied “are you serious?”  Yep, I told her we were there for the post-party meal.  Everyone had a ton of fun cracking jokes and hanging out, and I didn’t make it to bed until 4 A.M.!  My little sister said it was the best birthday ever!

Too Big for Love?

I saw such an interesting article about a lady who wrote in asking if she was “Too Big for Love”.  My opinion is that, You’re only too Big for a man to love you if you think you’re too big.  Even though I might sometimes feel self-conscience about my extra fat roll or stretch marks, I don’t carry that around with me.  Most guys think I’m super-confident with the way I dress and carry myself.  I say fake it, pretend like you’re confident and no guy will know the difference.  I’ve went on a couple more dates with the new guy, I even got 3 more white roses on our 3rd date!  Is this real?  Somebody pinch me.  LOL! Anyway, here is a link to the article.  http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/article.aspx?cp-documentid=23154077&GT1=32023#atoolb 

A Family Affair

This morning my Shopping Cousin called as asked me to go workout out with her tonight.  I really didn’t feel like it because I’m sick again.  I can’t believe it;  I just got over a dual ear infection and sinus infection.  The doctor said if I have these sinus issues again that I should go see the Ear Nose and Throat specialist.  I was only feeling 100% healthy for about 3 days, before my troubles started all over again.  It sounds like I’m holding my nose when I talk.  But, anyway, I agreed to go with my cousin because I know how important it is to have a workout buddy when you need one.   We agreed to go to the gym at 6 tonight after work.  My cousin is late for everything y’all.  We didn’t make it to the gym until after 7:30.  She told me she wanted to punk out and not go, but, she didn’t want me to write about her!  I got a good laugh out of that, because that’s certainly what I would have done, especially since it was her idea in the first place.  Unfortunately, I did have to harass her about the cute non-athletic shoes she was wearing.  Just like a true shop-aholic,  she told me they were some fancy name brand, like that made it okay.  It was not okay, real tennis shoes have shoestrings!  Anyway, I told her she better be ready for a real workout after making me wait on her.  We went upstairs to the indoor track at the gym and I did a new runner routine with her.  We power walked 4 laps and ran 2 laps and repeated.  We finished a whole mile.  She’s skinny and had pretty good running speed.  She’s actually living proof that changing your eating habits works.   She lost over 100 pounds and has kept it off for almost 20 years!  After running the track we went down to the machine room and got on the elliptical machine.  I let her listen to my podcast  and she really liked it.  She “ran” on the elliptical during the running intervals of Week 1.   After the elliptical, she thought surely we were finished.  “Oh, no” I told her.  “You wanted your trainer/cousin Carli to give you a good workout, and that’s what I’m gonna do!”  We got on the bouncy medicine balls and did leg exercises, sit-ups and even push-ups.  We did a few cool down stretches and I figured that was enough.   We had a great workout, and it was good to see that the two of us could do something together other than go shopping.