Updates!

My birthday sucked. But as this is a super normal thing for me, I wallowed for like 14 hrs and then moved on. The Friday after my birthday was much improved. Thanks so much friends/wine. Also for all the Birthday wishes from so many of you! I really did love them!

Total weight loss as of 10/18= 5.8 pounds! The two other people and I at work are up to a total of 18 during the last three weeks.

I still hate my headphones while working out. But I am being cheap and lazy. If anyone wants to give me a delayed birthday or early birthday present I wouldn't turn away headphones.

But the plus side is I am working out. I try to go most nights after work and commit about an hour to the gym. Today I learned that I absolutely need to stay away from the TV showing Hoarders. Because man that is usually some truly gross stuff they remove peoples homes.

My lovely and loving sister allowed me to do 5 loads of laundry at her house, and she feed me! All I had to do was watch her three adorable children for like an hour and a half. We completed a puzzle- even Noelle managed to help without being destructive. Kind of magical.

I leave for CA so, so, so soon! Can't wait to see Cheryl and Jim. They have some amazing things planned for me already.

I've joined the club... the shred club

It's a craze ladies and gentlemen- and everyone is doing it! I have read countless blog posts about the kick ass-ness of this DVD workout. And because I am all about conformity- haha, I decided I would have to check it out. The DVD is super affordable- about 8.99 from amazon or walmart.com, and man is it intense. I started out on level 1 yesterday and just completed day 2 about 10 minutes ago. It may have only been about 24 hours since I began- but I can feel it already. Other than being completely sapped and on the floor after yesterday's inaugural tryout, I didn't notice any effect until today at work (oh all those stairs leading up to my office). I always participate in the 2nd round of stretches at work as well and my upper body was definitely feeling it. After work I made a quick trip to walmart, I decided I needed some different hand weights, my existing ones are round and hard to grip during different exercises. I picked up some healthy snacks; bananas, apples, yogurt (which must be a side effect from the 13 hours of Burn Notice I watched this weekend) and also some grocery's I needed- milk and Peanut butter- Why am I telling you my grocery list? Because these all add up to being super heavy. Oh and I park 1/2 block away from my apartment, and oh I have 26 stairs to climb. Lets be honest here- the LAST thing I wanted to do when I got home was get my butt kicked by Jillian. But I did it none the less, mostly because- 1) I try not to give up on stuff so early, 2) as much as I might promise myself I would do it when I woke up- I wouldn't, I hate waking up and then doing stuff, and 3) probably most important Laura already knew I did day 1, she called me last night and we chatted about how tough Jillian is. So in my sleepy tired head all I kept thinking was- but Laura might call and find out I suck. So I got my butt in gear and busted through the whole workout.

Some possible drawbacks of working out at home:

• Limited living room/workout space (I have to rearrange to simply do the moves, plus I sometimes run into/hit the chains from my ceiling fan)
• I live above an actual, open for business during the day, store. (Doing jumping jacks and butt kicks might be a little loud for them)

What is great?

• Convenience
• I can wear whatever I want (at the gym I feel judged like my clothes aren't cute enough)

So it is out there now people- I am doing the shred! I officially make all you readers responsible for checking up on me- make sure I do not suck!

Hardest Part:

• Push Ups
• Jump Rope (I don't think I am coordinated enough to fake jump rope)

What I like the best:

• Punches- felt the burn right away!

5K

Yesterday at work I went to a meeting about the Pella Challenge- it is essentially you signing up to say i have this goal- and getting support from other team members to achieve it. Originally I had just planned to see if I could find some others that could go to the gym at the same time I did but the guy running the meeting was way passionate about it and said there was a plan to go from couch potato to 5k. So I think that is what my goal is going to be- working up to a 5k! Today at the gym I did the training plan for week one- and although it kicked my butt a bit I made it all the way through!

Bad news... good news...

Bad news first- Bad year for the housing market, and the economy. The housing market has been on a downward trend since about late 2005/early 2006 and is projected to bottom out sometime in late 2008 or even early 2009- why is a young women like myself writing about boring house statistics you say? I work for a large window manufacture and when people aren't building, buying or remolding there is 1) less work for me to do and 2) not good for my company. Yesterday the company announced it would be restructuring our (salaried) bonus structure. Which means if we can't pull through this year with some good results my bonus will be cut in half. yuck. I am hoping they don't have to completely get drastic like 17 years ago when they cut all salaried people's salaries by 10%- and it wasn't a short-term situation they never got them back, even when the market went back up- double yikes!
Good news- today at the gym I diversified and did some weight training- or a lot of it. I tried most of the machines that until today have, well baffled and terrified me. But building muscle is essential for burning fat so here I am building muscle! The weather finally looks to be warming up so I am hoping to be able to start walking to work soon. My gym requires "gym only" shoes so today at the grand opening of the new shoe place I picked up a new pair of "gym only" shoes and am going to retire my old pair to outdoor walking and running and biking- this spring looks to be a damp one so it will be nice to be able to get a pair muddy and not having to worry about cleaning them before going to the gym.