Nikki-looking more like Rippa arms every day

I have had a fantastic week! You know when you’re so busy you don’t even get to see your husband to be (seriously hate the word fiance, dunno why but I hate calling Ryan that. I’m fine with Husband though.. soon enough) Ok so I seriously saw Ryan when I woke him up at 2pm on Thursday this week to give him a kiss goodbye, other wise I have been so busy, but it’s been great because I have been working on my weekly goals in between working both jobs and now coaching a jr. high basketball team.

Here’s how it went:

 1. Track all food on MFP and complete my entries-I never finish my entries after lunch. 

Mon-today I have done this! after I complete an entries it tells me if I continued to eat this way (good or bad) I would weigh so much in so many weeks.  Not sure how tonight’s dinner will go as it’s my work Xmas party but I’ll try to still guess at how many calories things are and put them in.  If not tomorrows a new day and I’ve done well the rest of this week.

2. Do 20 push-ups before bed (a day) home or work

Ok so I haven’t done my 20 push-ups a day before bed, but I’ve done 20 pushups a day during workouts.

3. fit in 4 work outs- Monday night (might have to be at 10pm), Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning, and Thursday morning.  I’m not counting the snowboarding I’m doing with work as a workout, it’s just extra, same with Ball Hockey.

I did it! Monday night was an hour and a half at home and I started it at 9pm! please hold back the applause.  It was a success because I do hate working out in the evening, but once I got going I wanted to keep going.

Tuesday morning I only had time for a 30 minute workout but I fit it in (at home- gotta love having the treadmill and weights and NIKE training, seriously kicks my butt every time)

Wednesday- I met up with Jill (yay we both made time even with our cray schedules) at the YMCA and we fit in a nice hour arm and cardio work out.  Showed Jill the sprint training I’ve been doing to get speedy for ball hockey!  Plus after this hour workout I went home and shovelled for 40 minutes… omg my arms were dead

Thursday- went to the gym after work (9am) and did 40 mis on the elliptical (my hip and calf have been bugging me again) and then just 20 on the treadmill cause I wanted to do my sprint training.  I had done weights mon-wed so I figured I’d just do my assisted pull ups and be done. 

Side not on the pull-ups- I downed the weight to 80lbs, meaning I was pulling up 70lbs of my own weight (I think I had it last set at 90 or 100 I’ll have to look back in my blogs/exercise notes) and SHITE was it so much harder.  I did 3 rounds of 10 reps, then 8, then 5.  Gah gotta keep at it, but pretty sure my work is paying off… no?

looking more like Kelly Rippa arms booooya!

4. My MFP pal (that I have been doing the weekly challenges with) and I have come up with this weeks goal of fitting more fruit and veggies into our daily meals  so my goal is fitting in at least 8 servings a day.

I have been killing it on the fruit/veggie eating goal.  Salads, oranges for snacks, and omg can I tell you I feel fuller longer or that a little mandarin orange tides me over till i get home and cook dinner! Not that I didn’t know this but I had started to slack on how many f/v I was eating

so as long as I fit some working out in this weekend and don’t over do it at the 2 xmas parties I’m going to I’m thinking good things will happen on the scale! Happy Weekend!

Nikki-Mini goals week 1

I’m back from feeling sickly, but still a bit stressed with all the stuff I have coming up this next month.  My basketball coaching gig starts today after the shift I picked up at my relief job.  Plus i really need to get over to our second property to do some work.  We are so close to finishing the renos, but Ryan and I don’t have a full day where either of us can go and work at it.  We’ll both be popping in for a few hours daily this week and slowly working away at it.  Cross your fingers for me (us) that we can finish by Sunday!

Even though I’m going to be busy as a bee I need to set some weekly goals to work on that will help me reach my final goals which are supposed to be done in like 16 or maybe it’s 17 weeks now… I’ll have to double check.  I know I can fit in even an hour work out at least 4 days this week.  If I put it in a blog I’m more likely to stick to doing what I said.

So for this week there are my mini goals.

1. Track all food on MFP and complete my entries-I never finish my entries after lunch

2. Do 20 pushups before bed (a day) home or work

3. fit in 4 work outs- Monday night (might have to be at 10pm), Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning, and Thursday morning.  I’m not counting the snowboarding I’m doing with work as a workout, it’s just extra, same with Ball Hockey.

4. My MFP pal (that I have been doing the weekly challenges with) and I have come up with this weeks goal of fitting more fruit and veggies into our daily meals  so my goal is fitting in at least 8 servings a day.

Also weighed in: 151 lbs

so that is -1  lb

I kind of think that when I start weight training 2-3x a week my weight goes up almost immediately.   Of course because muscle weighs more than fat, but it’s just odd how every time I start lifting weights consistently my weight increases and then because I haven’t done weights in like 2 weeks my weight has dropped a bit.

 

Jill – If I don’t have time to sleep, when should I exercise!

That’s right folks you are about to listen to me go on about how busy I have been lately…

Well maybe I will spare you and give a quick synopsis.

I am currently working day and night to open a new YMCA Centre of which I am the Program Director. I am pretty proud of this accomplishment and in no way am I complaining. I’m witnessing first hand how the work we are doing is changing the lives of our clients. I have a lot of friends that work in this type of industry (lovely Nikki is one and my husband Michael is another) and I am sure they can attest to the fact that you don’t always get a chance to enjoy the warm fuzzies or have clients express sincere gratitude for the work that we are all doing. So I would like to take this moment to take a deep breathe and enjoy.

Now back to business…

If I am not getting to the gym or getting out for a run as often as I would like (or ever these days) then what am I doing to make sure that I am not slipping. Well I can tell you that this is where all the little things are going to have to add up and I think that they have. Take a look at the following:

1. I ALWAYS take the stairs, even if I am carrying something too dangerously heavy to carry up or down the stairs at work, I send it in the elevator and meet it at the other end of the stairs. This adds up over the course of the day…sometines to mix it up I do 2-3 steps at a time.

2. I am aware of portion size. This is HUGE!!! If you can do one thing to help you stay wthin your caloric intake goal/day make it portion control…eat a little less as long as you are not going hungry..because hungry leads to binging later on.

3. I do go to the gym sometimes…I just have to be strategic about it. I have been teaching Active Older Adult Fitness classes where I get a very low impact workout and on Monday nights I take a Cardio Kickboxing class. The startegic part is that these are the 2 classes that I will be teaching in January at the new YMCA centre.

4. I take every opportunity I can to get outside and shovel snow! At work and at home.

5. This is not my choice but because the underground parking is not ready yet at work I park a million miles away and have to walk every morning evening and sometimes it seems like 10x/day. I am a little bitter about this as sometimes it is really cold but I just dress warmer and smile because I am getting some free exercise time!

6. I also have a chart that I am filling out for December. Every day I fill out how many squats, sit ups and push ups I do per day. Sometimes it is  NONE…I don’t like  having to write that down so before bed I usually try to get at least 20 of each in so I have something to write in that chart. I will post results at the end of December.

7. I also play hockey once a week with my team and plan on renting the ice so we can all get together and play ice hockey soon!

I have decided I need another 1/2 marathon run to get ready for so in January I will sign up for one and get to training for it.

My motto for this busy busy time is:

No matter what the set backs, never give up and no complaints. Just do the work you can whenever you can do it!

Nikki-sickly side tracked

I haven’t been doing the best at blogging lately but am hoping my life slows down a little by the end of this week, I have also been trying to still write posts at nikkiinhighgear as well but trying to keep health/exercise focused on this blog and write more random happenings on my other blog.  ANYHOW here I am.  I haven’t done well the last 2 weeks and I’m just going to flat-out say it.

I haven’t worked out since September 18 at the hockey game aka my last post.

I worked 41 hours mon-tues, so literally had NO time to even sleep really, worked on the renos at our second property on Wednesday, my day off (at least that burnt some calories), worked thursday and became illish on friday.  I literally laid on my couch for 14hours watching TV/sleeping until I had to go into work at 11 pm.    Anyways if you know me, I can’t usually watch TV that long unless I’m a tad depressed or sick.  So something was up, it’s just shitty that I felt this way sunday and monday as well.  Sunday I slept for at least 15 hours, which also means I didn’t go to hockey and am only starting to feel kind of normal again this morning.

Ps I have the best boss in the world who worked during the evening so that I could rest and not worry about training 2 staff and having hyper kids home.  Again I’m a youth worker who works in group home where four 15-18 year olds live and it can be challenging some times especially when you don’t feel great.  Also thanks to all my friends who heard or knew I was sick and kept tabs on me! also my cats have never cuddled me so hard before.

 

I’m feeling a bit down about not getting my workouts in, but my body pretty much went into shutdown this weekend.  I think having so much to do (2 jobs, renovations, coaching basketball coming up, playing basketball and hockey, trying to lose weight and the list goes on) has finally caught up to me and sadly side tracked me from some things.  I really want to be at the gym 5 days a week, but until we finish these renovations I need to put my focus onto that place because we need to finish and sell that place ASAP (it’s one of our main sources of stress)

Here’s the good news, I weighed myself and I’m doing fine, as in I haven’t gained any weight.  Actually may have lost but I’ll figure that all out next week.  I also tried on my wedding dress this morning just for  a little pick-me up and shit did that eve do that trick. Not only do I need more alterations than I did before, but damn I’m excited because my wedding is just shy of 4 months aways in MEXICO!!  oh who’s excited by more alterations? me even thought it will cost some money.  My dress is way loser than it was a few months ago, so even if I haven’t lost weight I know that my weight training is doing the trick-my back looks amazing in the dress right now, if I do say so myself.

So here’s to feeling better and getting back on track.

Nikki-Hockey love part 1

I know Jill and I have both mentioned that we play ball hockey.

Yes, we’re on the same team. We play for Mish Mash

Half time bench shot

I joined the team in the fall of 2009 and it was kind of coincidence how it happened.

Ryan and I were driving back to the city from visiting his Mom who lives 3 hours away and I know that to get Ryan to talk nonstop all I have to do is bring up hockey. Ask him one simple question like “how long have you played hockey babe?” gets him going. I’m sure I’ve asked this question every few months over the last 5 years of us dating, you would think he would have caught on by now, but NOPE!

Anyways… after the lead question about hockey he goes off on his hockey tangents about why he loves hockey, how amazing he is at it, the tricks he can pull of on his drop in ball hockey, back to how amazing he is at hockey, how if he hadn’t broken his ribs at 16 he probably could have made it to the NHL (just like every other male hockey player I know) and then out of no where this one particular day he said “I want you to love hockey as much as I do, you should play”.

There is no way I could ever love Hockey as much as Ryan, which is going to be explained in pt 2 of hockey love, But for this blog I’m talking about me and hockey. So Ryan was the one who said I should play. Well at that point I had no options of playing. Saturdays was Ryan’s boy time and I wasn’t going to go as I never played and it was boy time. A few weeks later my friend Jocelyn texted me out of the blue and asked if I wanted to join a women’s ball hockey team that she was going to join as they needed more players. I figured I may as well for 2 reasons.

1. I was already attempting to get my ass in gear to lose weight, so playing would help

2.Ryan loves it and said I would if I played, so why not try it out.

So I joined and loved it from the first game. I’m not sure what made me love it. I was horrible. I was so out of shape. I have only ever sweated the same amount when we play in our summer league on 30+ days and the arenas are like 40 degrees inside. I wasn’t totally sure where I should be positions wise though I wasn’t too bad because I find it similar to soccer, and I had horrible stick handling skills. After that game I invited Jill to join and with each season continued to invite friends to come play because it’s so fun. I have also made some amazing new friends.

One of the reasons I signed up with a personal trainer when Jill and I started our weight loss journey was because I wanted to be fit and faster for hockey . I feel like that training and the training I’m doing now, on my own, is finally paying off. This seasons been kind of rough, but the one complement I keep hearing is about how fast I’ve got and I truly appreciate it. Now if I could just work on stick handling and shooting because this season has been a disaster for me so far and it’s beyond frustrating. It’s really hard to switch lines when you play well with a set line for a while and that has happened this season. Jen, Emma and I were not high scoring line last season but we have a natural chemistry that we just knew where each other would be, because we have spent so much time together in real life and it translates to hockey for us,which is kind of cool. This year I think I’ve had one shift with each of them. Before that Jill, Aline and I were often paired up and we got used to playing together as well. I know I just need more time with some of my new line mates but this season I feel like all I’m doing is running around in circles.

I haven’t been feeling very confident in myself and have been playing worse each game. Worse in my books and not up to my standards. I am not one to rely on the stats to tell you who is an asset to your team. I believe many players often don’t get the stats/acknowledgment, but put in just as much or more effort than the person who scores the most goals. Scoring goals is hugely important because that’s how you win, but it’s not the only thing that wins the game. Defensive players aren’t often acknowledged and my team has some great defenders who save our asses all the time.

Our last game we dominated, we won 6-0. I should have been celebrating with my teammates, especially Emma who scored 2 goals, and I left angry and in tears because I was beyond discouraged. The whole not playing to my standards thing.. I am my worst critic, I know that, but that’s how I am. Once I get down on myself in a game, there’s no changing it that game. The one thing I can say about last week is that it has put some fire in my steps this week and I plan on coming out strong regardless of who I’m playing with this coming Sunday.

Nikki-weighing in

Well I guess it’s been 2 weeks and I’m supposed to check in.

Current weight: 152lbs

So I’m back up the 2lbs I lost, with no real reason.  I know I was hungry last week, like a bottom less pit but I didn’t go crazy with by overeating. I have been working out, though I did only make it to the gym once last week because everyday off I had was spent doing home renovations on our second property, but really 8-10 hours a day painting, cleaning and all that stuff burns calories too! So who knows, it could be water retention it could be that I’ve put on muscle weight considering my arms have spent close to 60 hours painting.  Plus I’m still doing a ton of push ups daily.   I’m not disappointed with that because I know it hasn’t been self sabotage, but I do want to see the weight numbers go down, so I’m going to have to up my cardio somehow, since that’s where I’ve been lacking lately.

I finished my crunches challenge with my MFP friend, the goal was 420 crunches for the week, I did 480.  Starting today our challenge is Squats.  So my goal is to fit in 1000 squats this week.  I can do these at work (like today I work 15 hours, tomorrow is a 24 shift) so I can do these in the office and I’ll fit them in at the gym when I go later in the week.

That is all for today.  I’ll aim for photos for the next check in to see if these push ups are paying off yet.

Nikki-not much to report

It’s been a struggle this week to get to the gym.  We (Ryan, his mom, step-dad and I) decided we needed to attempt to flip our other property this past weekend, so friday-Tuesday we spent our days working out butts off.  We did all the fun demo stuff on friday and the rest of those days has been the tedious pulling, nails/staples out of walls and floors, taking all the fixtures off the walls, washing walls, replacing some floor, priming and painting, dry walling the list goes on.  So I’ve been burning calories working my undercarriage off daily but I feel blah.  I need some cardio, I need to get out for a for a run.

I had a weekly challenge with my myfitnesspal friend, I was to do 30 push ups a day for 7 days.  I missed one day because my right shoulder (the one I’ve dislocated) was feeling very weird and sore so I finished 180 push ups last week.  This week our challenge is sit ups/crunches/abs whatever you want to call it.  I picked 60 a day for 7 days, but today at the gym I wiped out 300, go abs! Next week is squats, I just need to figure out a number to do, either for the week or daily… any suggestions?

I was going to keep track of all the push ups I do during m workouts but they really add up, so I”m going to have to actually plan out my workouts so I know how many I do or write it down right after doing them… so we’ll see how that comes along. 

I did fit in 2 says of weight training last week, so that’s within my goals still! and I used the pull up machine and did 30 pull-ups each time.  I think at the end of November I will lower the weight and start lifting more of my own.

This week, I only just got to the gym this morning (thursday) and will get in one more weight training session before the end of the week.  But it’s been one of those weeks where I’m a bottomless pit and craving sweets, trying to stay strong but it’s hard!  sorry it’s a bit of a lame post, hopefully next week will be better!

Nikki-Every 2 weeks

Last week was great.  I ate well, wasn’t craving sweets or random snacks.  Just stuck to my set meals and had a healthy snack on the way home from the gym, like a pear or a tiny bran muffin.   I did 3 days of weight training last week and let me tell you I’m sore.  I also played Just Dance- 3 & 4 and had to laugh at myself when my arms were so sore I could hardly raise them above my head for some of the dance moves.

I’m keeping track of just the number of push ups and pull ups I’m doing because I’m hoping to see an increase in the number of push ups and decrease in the weight on the assisted pull ups as time goes on.

Here’s not my entire work outs, just the bits I want to keep track of.

	Assisted Pull Ups(100lbs)	Push Ups	Cardio
Sun			Hockey
Mon			Rest day
Tues	30	45	30 Treadmill
Wed	45	66	30 Treadmill
Thurs			Rest day
Fri	45	65	30 Treadmill
Sat			60 just dance

This week, starting this morning, a myfitnesspal friend and I are holding each other accountable to do a set number of push ups a day.   We are to message each other after we finish and message if we haven’t heard anything from the other.  For this weeks push up challenge my MFP friend is doing 60 push ups total for the week I’m aiming for 210, or 30 a day. So this morning I did 20 modified push ups and 10 normal/real/regular whatever you want to call them push ups.  I love using MFP the online support is amazing, everyone is very encouraging and supportive which is helpful on those days that I’m struggling and need an extra encouraging word.  Next week we’ll have a new mini challenge.  Any ideas for what other challenges we could do?

It’s funny how Jill mentioned in her last post, that for us ladies a “real push up” consists of our boobs touching the ground.  I have just never thought this was fair, as I’ve had some very chesty friends over the years and they don’t have to go very far to touch the ground.

last thing, I think for posting progress updates I am going to aim for every 2 weeks.  I know I posted my starting weight on October 24th, which means I’m just shy of 2 weeks but I’ll just go with today because Mondays seem easier to remember than Wednesday.

Current weight: 150 lbs

so I’m -2 lbs from my first weigh in, which is extremely motivating for me to keep doing what I’m doing!

Jill- Push ups are easier than finding the time to do them!

I wrote that doing 20 push ups in a row would be the hardest part of my goals this time around.

The bad news…

I guess I would like to correct that. Finding time to work toward and complete my goals will be the hardest part of this journey. Actually doing push-ups is the only part I have stuck to so far. So I have to re-evaluate and set out an actual timeline to make sure I am setting realistic goals.

The good news…

I have realized that I am not that far away from doing 20 push-ups as I thought! I can easily do 20 modified push-ups in a row and last night I went on to do 6 regular push-ups as well! I spoke with a fitness instructor at the YMCA who is also the queen of push-ups. I asked her what I can do to get into good enough shape to do a lot of push-ups. She said, “Jill, if you want to do push ups, you have to do push ups.” Damn….I thought I could lift a few weights and then miraculously I would be able to do push ups! Guess I’ll just have to keep doing the G forsaken things till I’m good at them. She also said, “Once your Tatas touch the floor you are ready to do regular push ups.” Well since losing weight the Tatas are further from the floor so this might take awhile!

After all practice makes perfect right?

We will see.

Also, last night I made the most amazing Zuchinni pancakes. Here is the recipe…if you prefer less fat content and less calories you can always choose to bake these in the oven instead.

Zucchini Pancakes

Ingredients:

• 3 Zucchinis Grated
• 1.5 Cups of Whole Wheat Flour (add more if necessary)
• 3 Garlic Cloves
• 5 Stems of Green Onions
• Black Pepper, Salt to taste
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 tablespoons of Corn Starch
• 1/4 cup of water

**I added one jalapeno pepper- minced…because I like it spicy!

Grate & Mix the above and fry in olive oil.

 I paired them with a chickpea masala ragout (I just made that name up) and it was deliscious.

This is how it looks in my tupperware container as I almost always eat last night’s supper for lunch at work. Wish I had of taken a photo last night when the presentation was much better. But you get the idea.

The Chickpea Masala Ragout is made with:

1 can of chick peas

a cup of chopped peppers

green onions

thinly sliced yellow onion

masala curry powder

1.5 cup of pasta sauce

2 cloves of garlic – minced

black pepper to taste

dried basil

*I put all veggies in a frying pan then added chickpeas and curry, then added the pasta sauce. Once everything is warm it is ready. I like my veggies crisp so I didn’t cook them for long. This time around I used already minced garlic so I didn’t need to use extra oil to cook the veggies as the garlic already has a little bit in it.

Enjoy!!!

 

 

Nikki-Working towards a pull up or toning up

Goal number 4 of mine is to do a pull up. Just one single pull up that is not done on the assisted pull up machine. So I’ve been doing some research about what exactly I need to focus my training on for that goal.  I don’t know if it’s possible, but I am going to make sure I am working at it.

Good news- kid at work who told me I had chicken wings decided today that I’ve been working out and my arms are no longer as flappy.  That’s weird considering he told me on FRIDAY my arms needed some work and I didn’t do any weight training this weekend.  another note of good news, 2 of the other kids at work were semi bored last night and started arm wrestling which turned into seeing who could do push ups of different kinds: elbows in, elevated feet etc.  One of my kids wants to start running with me, so when I’m double staffed or no other kids are home I think we might go out for a quick 30 minute run (he plays football, rugby and well has ADHD, so he’ll be good to run for ever) which is sweet as I’ll be chanting “I’m getting paid right now” every time I want to stop and walk.

I’m not going to weigh in on a weekly basis like I had been since that’s not the main focus of my goals, but I haven’t decided when.. every 2 weeks? once a month? guess I’ll figure it out soon.

What I am going to do is keep track of my push ups/pull ups and on a weekly basis report back about reps etc.  I wont tell you every last thing I’ve done but just numbers for the week. don’t want to completely bore everyone.

It was good and bad at the gym this morning.  I had just started my weight training after cardio, I was about done the first circuit when a trainer interrupted me to ask if I wanted to try this new Body Composition Scan.  It figures out your Total body Water, Body Fat etc… take a look below.

Basically to sum it up it told me it recommends that I lose 13.2 lbs (since it weighed me in at 153.7lbs) so that’s around what I’d like to lose which is alright.  I also need to do a few more reps on the left side of my body because the right is slightly stronger.

Finished off this scan and went back to my workout but I already felt like I had cooled down so I did one more circuit and called it quits, tomorrows another day at the gym.

Random lunch update:

Healthy lunch Chicken, tomato, spinach, homemade skinny dipping tzatziki, green onion and havarti cheese. About 480 Cals which is a bit more than I’d usually want for a wrap but I was not hungry this am so I didn’t eat breaky (which I don’t usually do!)

Here are a few of the articles I’ve found thus far in regards to pull-ups, if you’re interested.

You Can Progress to a Pull Up

Experience Life

Also found this video to work on my push up, since I want to be able to do 20 without being out of breath and tired, Like I used to when I was like 18

MizFitOnline