For The Health of Grace: April 2012

Hello everyone! On yesterday, Saturday, April 7, 2012 I completed the Jamie Eason LiveFit Challenge. Wow! Okay. As some of you who have been reading my blogs know, this has been a tough journey for me. I am in the middle of completing my MBA program and I work 40 plus hours a week. I've been getting up at 4 am in the morning to go to the gym and workout. Man, I set here and think about my first time in the gym. I was so intimidated. I did not know what I was doing.

And now, I am a veteran. I go in the gym and do my workouts without any problems. I am no longer intimidated. I even made some acquaintances. However, there were some issues. During Phase III I started to encounter injuries. First it was my left foot, then it was my right groin, and last my right hip. I had to take a few days off just to recuperate. Also, last weekend I went to New York for a wedding and I did not go to the gym. But I more than made up for it with all of the walking I did. I was planning for this weekend to be my one and only cheat weekend. But it did not happen. I could not bring myself to do it. I did have a small piece of cake, but is slimmer than a slice of bread, lol. So I still ate well at a wedding, that had so much food. Okay, maybe one thing I ate that was bad was the pasta, and I did not eat all of that either.

So, I guess you want to know what are my results. Well, I started this program officially weighing 138 pounds. Now I weigh 136 pounds. Unfortunately, I did not take my measurements or percentage of body fat at the beginning of this program. But my clothes are really loose. Too big to be exact. I wore a pair of skinny jeans yesterday and they were kinda baggy. I have some photos that I will post.

Some of you may have some questions. So, I will try to guestimate them.

1. Did you follow the program to a T? I tried very hard to do the workouts as designed and for the most part I did, until the injuries started happening in phase III.

2. Did I eat right the whole time? The answer is mostly yes. My biggest thing is that I don't think I ate often enough. I am a vegetarian so I don't really eat bad. What I had to do is cut out sugar. Well unnatural sugars. I replaced sugar with xylitol. Xylitol is a great sugar substitute and it tastes just like sugar. For this program it called for lean proteins, chicken, fish, etc. However, being a vegetarian, I could not eat the chicken, but I did eat fish, tofu, and shrimp. For breakfast, I did either egg whites, oatmeal, or Kashi cereal with 6 grams of sugar or less and unsweetened almond milk (my new favorite, I've actually turned my mom onto it). And of course I ate fruit and vegetables. Nuts: almonds, cashews and walnuts. I tried to eat as many times a day as I could, and I did protein shakes. I also have fallen it love with Ezekiel bread. It's my new favorite thing (with natural peanut butter).

3. Did you ever get discouraged? Yes, I did plenty of times. I just felt like nothing was happening to my body. The biggest mistake was getting on the scale. The scale does not tell the whole story. I gained muscles, which weigh more that fat. Once I got this through my head I was good.

4. I am I happy with the results? For the most part, yes . . . I am healthier and stronger. I remember, I could barely do 5 push ups, now I can do three sets of 10 - 15. I am not happy that I had to lose some days due to my injuries. I do believe these missed days impacted my progress a little bit. But I look great if I do say so myself ;)

5. What's next? That is what I have been thinking about. I thought about doing the whole program all over again. That is once I have finished with my MBA classes. This way, I can fully concentrate on working out and planning my meals ahead. If you go to www.bodybuilding.com there are plenty of programs and information about working out. I think I may try another program from there. I do plan to continue to eat clean and healthy.

You want to see updated photos? Here we go.