That feeling when...

Your pants you bought to eventually fit in are now too big. Ahhh. :)

Monday July 23, 2012

Today was a good one. Actually woke up on time and got to work on time where I made quota (!). We have to get a certain number of leads a day (more leads=more commission) which I have NOT been doing the past 2 months. I'm finally back on my feet and that's always nice. Anyways, for breakfast I made this new coffee drink thingy (I'm a dutch bros whore and have been going through withdrawals) so I like to make my own nummy coffee at home. Did you know a iced kicker is like.. 500-600 calories? T______T yeah, not gonna happen. So I put a scoop of slim fast in it I bought at Walmart (meal replacement crap), and 15 grams of whey protein, a dash of non fat caramel macchiato coffee creamer, and fill the rest of the cup with coffee. Better than Dutch Bros, I swear. Along with that, gotta have my egg whites. I pan fried 2 egg whites with some chopped peppers in them. My calorie intake for breakfast? Only 200 calories! For a snack around 10 I had a Chocolate Peanut Butter FiberOne bar (90 cals)

After work was a busy day, made my way over to Victoria's Secret, got my monthly free gift and an extra goodie. Hot pink incredible panties (panty line free for the gym!) and some cotton panties. Had to get a bottle of their kissable massage oil and a little makeup bag to carry along in my purse too. Had to. God damn you Victoria's secret credit card.. Oh and mommy bought me a Sunburst (idk wtf it is, but its good) from the Nordstrom's coffee shop which helpfully post the calories next to the drinks, only about 180 cals. FYI, almost any food place you go to has nutrition facts. Just ask! I do.

GYM TIME!!! So at 6 I had a cycle class. We just use those bikes that you can control the pressure of your workout with a knob. We'd change pressure a lot depending on tempo of the song and do various up down workouts while non stop peddling the whole time. Yeah. It kicked my ass. Definitely not my favorite class, but a class that kicks my ass I must keep attending. Cause honestly thats what I want! I want to be pushed to my MAX!
At 7 was Zumba. Got to say Zumba is my favorite class of all (duh). All you do is dance. Dance, dance, dance. Keep moving your feet, dance, dance, dance. Got a little solo dance with the instructor too, who is the fittest woman in the class and pregnant! I give the most props to her for being sexy and carrying child! She really uses her ass in every move which makes me feel sexeh when I attempt to copy her in my dance. Her Zumba pants she wears to have long ribbons hanging down from them which I think make it look like she shakes more than she does.. Guess I'll know when I get my first pair of Zumba pants. Ran into an old highschool friend in that class who is looking great! She's gonna start joining me on my gym-capades when she can :) It's always nice to rekindle old friendships!

After gym, I had me some Quizno's. I <3 Quizno's. I had a harvest chicken salad and turkey flatbread, only equalling up to about 550 cals. YES, I did skip lunch today! BAD! Do not skip meals! I was in a rush. And for these reasons we carry around granola bars and fruit in our bag or car.

Now it's time for my warm glass of fiber-soymilk then off to bed. Goodnight readers <3

Hydrate! HYDRATE! HYDRATE!!!!

Drinking water before and after your workout helps minimize negative affects of water loss due to sweat. High fluid intake can prevent diseases such as bladder cancer, kidney stones, gallstones, and colon cancer. I have been drinking about five blender bottles of water a day (120oz) and all I really drink is water. It's hard to find any drinks really that taste good without any added sugars. Like I say, drinking soda is drinking empty calories! Even sweet tea.. Yes, I am a die-hard fan of Lemon Snapple. But I finally looked at how many sugars it has that had to stop. Home made tea is just as good, bottled up to go whenever you are :) BUT! Water is definitely the best thing you can drink. SmartWater has electrolytes you need in it when working out.
Here's a little formula I picked up from my gym manager to calculate what your daily water intake should be. I'll use my info for example:

1. Divide your body weight in half

      170 / 2 = 85


2. Add 20% of your body weight

      170 x .20 = 34                85 + 34 = 120 ounces of water a day!


Try drinking about two cups of water two hours prior to your workout to hydrate yourself with what you're about to sweat out. Make sure to take as many water breaks as you need during workout!
Get on the scale before and after your workout to see how much weight you lose in sweat. If you lose a pound, that's two cups of water, You should drink about 20% MORE water than you lost (so say you lose a pound which is two cups, drink another two and a half to three cups. How do you know if you are hydrated? Take a long pee! If it's clear, you're good. If you're urine is dark, drink up.

A tiddy-bit about Virginia

      So, like I said I'm 19. I work at a call center giving out insurance quotes for State Farm and Allstate (shoot-myself-in-the-face kinda work). I love.... well, basically using my mind and being productive. I love learning. I am trying to go to school to be a cosmetologist, masseuse, and personal fitness trainer. I do have dreams to one day open my own salon/spa/gym. I love anything and everything that has to do with making yourself look and feel better. I know one day down the road, I'll find some kind of mental health training I want to do too. My favorite hobbies have to be cooking, reading, singing, making myself and other look and feel beautiful, fitness training, hiking, camping, dancing, and have recently taken up playing pool. I basically go to work every day at 6 am (yes, I get up at 4 T____T), come home and nap at 3, take whatever classes I can at the gym from 6-8, come home and eat and make dinner, bed, restart. So I don't have kids or anything but do live a pretty busy lifestyle but fit the gym in there every day no matter what! an hour of your day is only like.... 4 percent of your day? I like to think of it that way.. sounds like much less.

       So I go to my city's 24hr fitness. It's about 29.99 a month. All I do there is take the classes! It's pretty much a really cheap trainer, because you're being told what to do and can get any help you need in any of the classes. I try to take 2 classes a night from 6-8. They have Zumba, BodyPump, Kickboxing, Aqua, Cycle classes, and their own bootcamp. Whatever is on the list, I just do it! and let me tell you, it kicks my ass but the results are worth it. Would you rather not go to the gym now and regret it later? Or go to the gym now and rest reassuringly later? LOL! I do always sleep better at night knowing I burned some cals, cause thats what you have to do to lose weight. Burn more than you take in. A big thing I'm doing now is counting calories, you would not believe how fast they can go! Try MyFitnessPal on your smartphone, you can plug in  how many calories you need a day and put in any food you take in and see if you pass your limit. I've also learned to drink pretty much endless amounts of water. It can stop your from being "hungry" (a lot of times we mistake hunger for thirst). As for food.. try to go organic if you can. Cut back on processed foods and foods with added salts and sugars and all that yummy stuff. I basically take any recipes I love -from fast food to desserts- and make it home made. I pack my lunch every day, and coworkers even ask where I bought my food, thinking its from delis. You can make anything however you like it at home and in a healthy manner, just watch your portions and eat lots of veggies!
           Some off topic personal things I'd share, my likes. Okay so you all MUST read The Hunger Games. I just finished it, and I just have to applaud Suzanne Collins for that triology. Each book gets more intense and each chapter really has you holding on and wanting to keep going. The ending to the trilogy is just... ugh. I dont want to spoil it for you guys, but it's a good one. READ IT!!! Now I'm reading 50 Shades of Grey.. and yes. Its' sexy.
             A great station I love to work out for all of you smartphoneaholics: download the iheartradio app (I like it just as much as Pandora) and search SpinCycle. It is a live DJ playing remixed upbeat newer hits. When the music gets more intense and fast it makes me work harder without even thinking or trying!
I will be posting daily with my recipes, exercises, and my journey to fitness so stay tuned!

Join me!

So I'm 19 and have lost over 100 pounds. How? Simply change in eating habits. In high school at age 17 I topped off the scale at 279 pounds. Me. and 17 year old girl! How? By basically eating fast food, enormous amounts of calories (Route-44 sized slushies at Sonic were my favorite, I drank 1-2 a day!), and never getting excercise. Once I graduated highschool, my eating habits flipped 180 degrees. I starting eating only portions of food I needed to. Even not eating healthy that way I still lost a bunch of weight by just eating less. Now, July 22 2012, about a year and a half out of high school, I am down to 170 lbs. YES! I have lost 100 lbs just changing my eating habits!
These past few months I really have become a health and fitness nut. I look in the mirror now and see womanly curves, not rolls and rolls. I actually get checked out now, and the feeling is still a bit weird. I'm not really used to being hit on sadly, and it happens a LOT! So, I have decided to finish off what I have started. I have been going to the gym 5-6 days a week and eating healthy. I have been learning a lot of things about health and would like to invite you on my journey to actually become healthy on the inside and out. I will post my workouts, products I use, and recipes (warning: I cook a lot, and I try to be fancy with it, so be ready for recipes). Besides that, I'll let you all get to know me with stuff besides fitness. But please, join me through my weight loss. It is so much easier than anyone could imagine, and all you need is the strength and willpower.

Hello everyone, my name is Virginia Rose, I'm 19, and 5'4 and 170lbs.
My goal weight is 140lbs, OR whatever looks and feels best on me!

Here was me at 17, 5'4 and 279lbs.

If I can lose all that weight with no expensive diets or really killing myself, you can too. Please come along the journey because I'd love to share : )