LiveFit Trainer Phase 1 Day 22

This is the start of my fourth week on the trainer; therefore, it is the last week of phase 1!  Since it was my day off today, I slept in which felt pretty amazing.  My day started pretty sucky dealing with some personal stuff.  If you follow me on Instagram, a lot of this will sound familiar.  Today was just one of those days when I truly realized how far I have come.  Two and a half years ago, I was unhappy, about 60 pounds overweight, in an unhealthy relationship that wasn't positive for me at all, passive aggressive about my issues, stricken with anxiety attacks and felt as if there was no way out.  I dealt with my issues by drowning my sorrows in sugary sweets that I hated myself for eating later.  Today I've lost about 40 of the 60 pounds and put on some decent muscle.  I even beat my personal records for leg day today, including hitting ass to the grass squats at 115 pounds for 3 sets of 10.  While my passive aggressiveness is still there, I am getting better at this as well.  If I have a problem with something or someone, I say my peace, and I have learned to deal with my problems in a healthier way.  I take my anger or sorrow out on my workout, like today for example.  These are snapshots of my Polar watch after today's workout.  I was pretty upset heading into the gym, but I left feeling absolutely on top of the world!  Endorphins are kick ass!

I did the leg workout from last week with higher weights as well as a 10 minute mile run and 40 minutes walking on an incline of 5 on the treadmill.  I was going to do Zumba as well, but my knee was in a lot of pain from this workout.  I want to be in full health for Warrior Dash and not re-injure my knee.

I am so proud of myself for what I have accomplished in two and a half years, and I will never go back to being that insecure girl I used to be.  I am not to where I want to be yet, but I will get there!

Well I am off of my soap box for the evening!  Hope everyone didn't have too bad of a case of the Mondays!

LiveFit Trainer Phase 1 Days 20 and 21

I am going to be combining rest day posts for the rest of the trainer, because nothing all that cool happens on rest days, except I'm really hungry and want to eat all of the food!!  This weekend my craving was banana with chocolate peanut butter.  I think in total all weekend I had three.  Bananas and peanut butter are on Jamie Eason's approved foods list, but they aren't necessarily listed for phase 1.  However, I think I did pretty well considering my other options were Betty Crocker Fudge Brownies or S'Mores Goldfish crackers!

I did try a new recipe this week using Quest bars that I found on Instagram, but I really didn't like it at all!  It was a recipe for PB Quest bar Oreos, which sounds good and has all good ingredients, but the filling just didn't work for me.  They do look pretty though!

I think I will try these again with my own recipe, because I like the idea of making Oreos out of Quest bars.  As I have said previously, Quest bars are basically the best protein bar on the planet!  I haven't found a flavor I don't like!  I wish I wasn't so broke right now, because I am almost out of them!!!!

Alright ladies and gentleman, I am exhausted and beyond ready for bed!  Sleep tight!

LiveFit Trainer Phase 1 Day 19

Today was the last workout day for the week, which I busted out this morning before going shopping with my friend Jen.  It was a Shoulder and Abs workout that went as follows:

• Seated Dumbbell Press: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Lying Rear Deltoid Flyes: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Dumbbell Front Raise: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Seated Arnold Press: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Dumbbell Lateral Raise: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Seated Bent-Over Rear Deltoid Raise: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Crunches: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Roman Chair Leg Raise: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Oblique Crunches: 3 sets of 10 reps

I have noticed that I have been feeling a lot stronger with my workouts, and I have noticed a little bit of definition.  In fact, I woke up this morning with marks on my shoulders from the squat bar yesterday!

I also think I'm getting more will power and control over my diet.  I went to Buffalo Wild Wings with a few friends and family for dinner and ordered Naked Tenders and a Veggie Boat.  Then my friend Jen and I came home and made Jazzythings Chickpea PB cookies, which are in a previous post.  They have a vegetable base and are pretty low calorie, so I am not considering these a cheat.  I am giving most of them away though, so I don't sit and eat the entire batch.  

It is obvious that this healthy lifestyle has become a part of me, because all I spent money on at the mall today was workout wear.  I bought some Adidas leggings and a sports bra, plus some tennis shoes for after Warrior Dash, since mine will get ruined in the mud.

I love these shoes!!

The shoes were super inexpensive for cross trainers too, because Adidas outlet was having a tent sale!  Who doesn't love a good sale?  Alright so it is rest days for the weekend, and my diet has got to be on point.  All I have set on the schedule is work, so I'm hoping that keeps me busy enough that I'm not wanting to smash on all of the food.

LiveFit Trainer Phase 1 Day 18 and Pro Yo

I cannot believe this page has almost reached 1500 views!  Thank you guys so much for reading!

Today was leg day again, and while I absolutely love leg day, I was still sore from Monday's workout!  But once I got started, my legs just seemed to work themselves out of their soreness and busted through an awesome workout!  It was the exact same as Monday, so check back to Day 15 for the workout.  However, today I was continuing my good mood of the last couple of days and wore one of my favorite old cheerleading shirts.  "We bust ours so we can kick yours."  I loved competitive cheerleading, because we seriously worked our asses off and left everything on the floor.  Now that I'm not competing, I try to do that with my workouts.  Except that now I'm not competing against another team, I'm competing against myself to be better than I was yesterday!

Some of you may be questioning why there are two leg days now, and this is one of the reasons why I love this trainer so much.  Jamie Eason chose to do legs twice a week, because it is her weakest body part.  While legs are my strongest, they are still not where I want them to be, and I'm more interested in bettering my legs than having a crazy strong upper body, though I am seeing gains in that area as well.  This is also where you can adjust the trainer to your own needs.  Jamie says that if you prefer to work on Chest and Triceps more, for example, you can do that workout twice and simply move the others to different days of the week so that the two Chest and Triceps workouts are about 48 hours apart in order to give them time to rest and rebuild.

Anyway, my schedule today was basically eat, clean room, eat, clean car, eat, workout, eat, softball, eat, blog and finally bed.  I was really glad that with my day off I was able to get some basic things done.  I was even able to do a little shopping with my brother.  I bought a foam roller from Everything Surplus, which I am really excited about!

These are used to roll out your sore muscles after a workout.  My brother got one earlier in this summer, and I love laying down on it and rolling my back.  It just helps to get the uncomfortable knots out, and since I am trying to save up some money, I figured a foam roller was a much cheaper method than paying for a massage every month or so.

The other really awesome part of my day that doesn't really have anything to do with my own fitness was watching my church's softball team play a double header tonight.  My dad, brother, cousin, and some friends play on the team, and I cheer them on from the sidelines.  It's a men's league, so I can't play.  I still have a ton of fun watching them.  They almost won the first game and won the second.  I took some pictures to share just a little bit of what I do outside of the gym and the kitchen.

Finally, I ended an amazing day with my favorite bedtime healthy snack.  Pro-Yo!!!  If you know me, you know I have an addiction to frozen yogurt.  I just love that I can add a bunch of toppings to it rather than just having plain old ice cream.  Now I don't have a lot of toppings on my pro-yo usually, because I do eat it at the end of the day.  I use it to fill out my extra calories and get some good protein in before bed.  My recipe does change depending on what protein powder I use and what flavors I'm looking for.  I have made cookies and cream pro-yo, vanilla pro-yo, chocolate pro-yo, etc.  Tonight I went with Peanut Butter Pro-Yo with a chocolate chip and caramel syrup topping.

Ingredients:
1 c non fat plain Greek yogurt (I usually use Chobani.)
1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder (But you could use any flavor.)
2 T PB2
Splenda or Stevia to taste
1 T Enjoy Life Dairy, Soy and Nut Free Mini Chocolate Chips
Walden Farms Calorie Free Caramel Syrup

Mix the yogurt, protein powder, PB2 and sweetener in a bowl.  Once it was mixed well, I chose to mix in my chocolate chips, but you can choose to add these as a topping later rather than as a mix-in.  Freeze mixture for about 30 minutes.  Once it is frozen to the point where it is still somewhat soft, add other toppings like Walden Farms Caramel syrup.  I used the caramel syrup, because I ran out of the chocolate kind!

Looks delicious right?  This gives my sweet tooth what it wants without breaking my diet, so it is the perfect end to my day!

I am off to bed, bloggers!  Thanks again for reading!  I have one more day of workouts for week 3, then a restful weekend ahead before the last week of Phase 1!!!

LiveFit Trainer Phase 1 Days 16 and 17...Breakfast Pizza

Sorry again for combining two days in one post, but I really want to make these worth reading.  I also really like to include pictures, so since I didn't have any from yesterday, I decided to wait and write all of it for today.  But let's start with day 16.

Day 16's workout is for Back and Biceps and is as follows:

• Hammer Strength Lat Pull: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Seated Narrow Grip Cable Rows: 3 sets of 10 reps
• T-Bar Row, also known as a Long Bar Row: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Back Extensions: 3 sets of 10 reps (These were killer after the Single Leg Deadlifts from Monday!)
• Barbell Curl: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Incline Dumbbell Curl: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Alternate Hammer Curl: 3 sets of 10 reps

I was so excited after I finished this workout, because I could actually see my biceps without bending my arms!  I love when the muscles get swollen like that!  I'm becoming such a gym rat, if I wasn't already! :)

I spent the rest of my day yesterday with friends watching 3D movies.  I planned ahead and brought my own food, knowing that I wanted to stick to the plan.  My friends got two $5 Little Caesar's pizzas, and I had my bright yellow lunchbox!  I love that my friends were not even surprised at all that I brought my own lunchbox full of food.  I brought 2 slices of Carrot Cake Protein Bars from my last post, a protein shake made with Body Fortress vanilla creme whey and unsweetened almond milk, 4 oz. of baked chicken breast, and green beans.  I ended up staying longer than I thought though and didn't bring enough food!  It got to 9:00 PM, which was time for my evening snack, and I was all out of food!  But my friends are awesome and took me on a Wal-Mart trip to get me a pint of Arctic Zero Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream.  Now this really hit the spot for me last night.  Arctic Zero tastes guilty, but it is lactose free, gluten free, and low calorie.  I can eat the entire pint for only 150 calories, and it's made with whey protein!

I am so thankful to my friends for allowing me to follow this lifestyle.  They joked about the pizza, but they were all very supportive!

Now for day 17.  To begin with, my workout today was Chest and Triceps.

• Wide Push-ups: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Incline Dumbbell Press: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Flat Bench Flyes: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Decline Flyes: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Bench Dips: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Lying EZ-Bar Tricep Extensions: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Dumbbell Tricep Kickbacks: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Overhead Two Handed Tricep Extensions: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Cable One Arm Triceps Extensions: 3 sets of 10 reps

There were a lot of workouts in this exercise set that I had seen people do in the gym but hadn't tried myself.  The Flat Bench Flyes and Decline Flyes were awesome, because gravity was working against me to pull the weights down as I was trying to pull them up.

I felt freaking awesome after this workout.  I have been in such a good mood lately!  I am no where near where I want to be with my ideal body and fitness goals, but I am happy and loving life.  I had someone today tell me my shoulders were looking more muscular, which is awesome!  I love that I am starting to see results!  Yes there are still things in my life that I would change, like a full time job, my own place or a relationship, but nothing can bring me down, and life is good!

I've talked enough about workouts and my good mood, on to better subjects: food!!

After seeing all of that pizza my friends ate last night, I wanted some myself, but some that wouldn't break my diet.  Therefore, I decided to make a healthy breakfast pizza!  I'll list my ingredients, but you can top it with any vegetables, eggs or meats that you want.

Ingredients:
1 La Tortilla Factory Low Carb High Fiber wrap
Pam olive oil spray
Garlic Powder
Oregano
6 T liquid egg whites
1/2 chopped yellow bell pepper
1/2 c Hunts diced fire roasted tomatoes
1 oz. Mt. Olive's jalapenos
2 slices of Go Veggie! provolone cheese

Saute the yellow peppers and cook the eggs in a pan with your spices on the stove top.  While this is cooking, spray a cookie tray and both sides of the wrap with the Pam olive oil spray and place on tray.  Sprinkle a little bit of garlic powder on the top of the wrap and smash the 1/2 c of diced tomatoes on it, just like pizza sauce.  Once the eggs and peppers are cooked, add this to the pizza too.  Add the jalapenos and cheese as well.  Sprinkle a little bit of oregano on top.

Bake in a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for 5-7 minutes.  I cooked mine for 7, but the edges of the wrap were extremely crispy.

It's no Little Caesar's, but it fixed my craving!

This wasn't really a pizza I could pick up with my hands and had to eat it with a fork, but this was still so good!  If you are a pizza lover like I am, then I would definitely try this recipe!!  I hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far!

LiveFit Trainer Phase 1 Day 15 and Carrot Cake Protein Bars

I can't believe it's already the beginning of week 3.  Only 9 more to go after this!  I have followed the trainer almost perfectly for the last 3 days, and I only have two and a half weeks until Warrior Dash.  I know I can get to the race without any cheats, especially after the amazing protein bars I made today!  Seriously they are like cake!  But first I want to talk about my new workouts.

As I mentioned in my last post, today was leg day, one of two for the week.  I absolutely love lifting for legs, because it is the strongest part of my body due to many years of cheerleading and gymnastics.  The following is the phase 1 leg day for weeks 3 and 4 of the trainer:

• Leg Extensions: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Wide Stance Barbell Squats: 3 sets of 10 reps (These are my absolute favorite!)
• Walking Barbell Lunge: 3 sets of 10 reps (I used two dumbbells rather than a barbell.)
• Single-Leg Kettlebell Deadlifts: 3 sets of 10 reps on each leg (I have never done these before, but they definitely worked my hamstrings like no tomorrow!)
• Lying Leg Curls: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Seated Calf Raise: 3 sets of 10 reps
• Standing Calf Raise: 3 sets of 10 reps

I was a little bit worried about the lunges because of my knee.  Before physical therapy, I was unable to do them, because it felt like my knee was just going to tear.  I hadn't tried doing them again until today, but I didn't have much pain at all!  The deadlifts were extremely difficult, because I had to balance on my bad knee with a 30 lb. kettlebell.  However, I pushed through and completed my sets.  My knee doesn't even hurt as I sit here to write this, and I even did an hour of Zumba this evening too.

I hadn't planned on Zumba, but my mom said she was teaching tonight.  So I went to support her.  Plus what's a little ass shaking going to hurt?! :)

Today was also meal prep day.  I made the usual chicken, brown rice, and veggies for lunches and dinners.

All of my meals

 The picture below is how I measure out my chicken.  If you are serious about dieting and eating right, you absolutely have to measure stuff out.  I use this cheap kitchen scale that I got at Wal-Mart when I was living at school to weigh out my 4 oz. servings of chicken every time I prep.  It was really inexpensive but one of the best purchases I could have made.  4 oz. is not an entire chicken breast.  It is more like 1/2 to 3/4 depending on the thickness of it.  While eating a whole chicken breast probably wouldn't hurt much, I count calories, and therefore need to be sure of my exact intake.

Now on to the best part of my meal prep for this week.  The LiveFit Trainer has a section of recipes, a lot of which I have made previously, like Italian Turkey Burgers and Pumpkin Spice pancakes.  I will most likely make these again and post the recipes.  However the recipe I made tonight is one that I haven't tried before.  Everyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE Quest bars, but they are super expensive.  And right now I just can't afford them.  I have 6 left, and I am saving them up!  Therefore, in order to save a little money until next payday, I made Jamie Eason's Carrot Cake Protein Bars!  Rather than send you guys to the website, I will post the recipe here, but all credit goes to Jamie Eason!

Ingredients:
1 c oat flour
2 scoops vanilla whey protein powder
2 t cinnamon
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/8 t allspice (I used Pumpkin Pie Spice.)
1/8 t nutmeg
4 egg whites
3/4 c Splenda, Stevia, Truvia, or Ideal
8 oz. baby food carrots
4 oz. water (Optional-I did not need it.)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Mix together flour, protein powder, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.  In a separate bowl, mix together egg whites, sweetener, baby food carrots, and water if necessary.  I would suggest waiting to add the water to see if you even need it.  Next, add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix together.  I used a hand mixer to make sure it really combined well.  Spray an 8 x 8 dish with Pam or some other non-stick spray, and pour batter into dish.

Bake for 20-30 minutes.  Mine only took 20 minutes, but every oven varies.

After baking

I was surprised by how much the cake rose while baking.  It came out a lot thicker than I thought it would, which makes the fat kid inside me very happy!  Let the cake cool fully before cutting into 16 squares.

Cake! Cake! Cake!

I almost felt guilty eating this.  Not going to lie, I ate 4 pieces after I finished washing my meal prep dishes!  Jamie says that 2 squares from a pan cut into 16 pieces is a serving size, but the macros I will give are for a single square or 1/16 of the cake.

Macros:
55 calories
0.7 grams of fat
6.4 grams of carbs
1.1 grams of dietary fiber
0.6 grams of sugar
6 grams of protein

Do yourself a favor, and make these, especially if you're addicted to super expensive protein bars and broke like me!

LiveFit Trainer Phase 1 Day 14

I started to take pictures of all of my food today, but then I realized it was pretty similar to yesterday.
Breakfast:
9:00 AM

• 6 T liquid egg whites
• Red and green peppers
• Mushrooms
• 1 slice whole grain Ezekiel bread

12:00 PM

• 1 scoop Body Fortress vanilla whey protein powder
• 1 c unsweetened almond milk
• Brownie Quest bar

3:00 PM

• 4 oz. baked chicken breast
• 1/2 c brown rice
• 1 c steamed broccoli
• Walden Farms Tomato Basil dressing

6:00 PM

• 4 oz. baked chicken breast
• 1 c steamed broccoli
• Walden Farms Tomato Basil dressing

9:00 PM

• 1 scoop Body Fortress vanilla whey protein powder
• 1 c unsweetened almond milk
• 2 T PB2
• 1 serving of Key Lime Protein Jello sprinkled with Splenda

All of this isn't exactly to the diet plan, but they are all foods on Jamie Eason's list of allowed foods.  I had to adjust in order to fit it to my work schedule, since I only had one break today.  Plus I was really getting sick of eggs, and the thought of eating egg whites at 9:00 PM made me sick.  Therefore, I had a protein shake, which was delicious!

Tomorrow is a whole new beast, and I am so excited for this new leg workout!!!