Tuesday, July 29, 2008

My TT Transformation Video

OK, here's the video. Let me know what you think! I'm a tad disappointed in my chin ups - but it was the second time that day we shot that movie so my arms were a little tired! I didn't like the angle the first time so we went back to the park and did a second movie. The sound was a little funny when I watched it; hope it sounds good to you! Here is also the link directly to it on You Tube.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

The Final Results

Well here they are! My before and afters of my second 12-week Turbulence Training Transformation Contest! I'm very proud of completing another 12 weeks and would like to thank everyone who supported me during this time! I lost 13 lbs and 5% body fat (according to my scale). I also completed my goals of 37 push ups in one minute and 10 chin ups!



I feel fantastic! Stay tuned as I am working on completing a video about my TT experience and will post it here when it is done.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Sticking My Toe in the Abdominal Pool

Today I decided to be a little crazy. It would normally be a recovery/light day for me, but I decided to go to the gym and try a workout from the TT for Abs Home Abdominal workout program - the TT for Abs Bodyweight 300. (I told you I was chomping to start this new program!) The bodyweight workouts are a bonus in addition to the regular TT for Abs workouts that are in this new package. I used the beginners' version today, next time I may try the intermediate. It was a circuit of 14 body weight exercises (think planks, push ups, mountain climbers) and you do 300 reps total. I clocked in at 15:38. I was hoping to get in under 15 minutes, but I walked from the mat to the smith machine to do the inverted rows. Next time I will have to run! You are only supposed to do the BW 300 once a month in place of one of your regular workouts as a test of sorts. I felt pretty good!

I only have one more TT 2k4 workout this week. Sunday I will posting my results! I'm a little nervous, because I know I could have been better on my diet, but that's called life. I just eat the best I can 90% of the time.

Just a reminder - the folks at Turbulence Training are still offering TT for $4.95 for a 21 day trial. If you like it, you'll be billed the remaining $35.00 after 21 days. If you don't like it, just let them know and you'll be refunded your $4.95. This is different than the new TT for Abs mentioned above. This is the Original Turbulence Training. You get a ton of bonuses and a 3 month free membership to the forums (get your fitness questions answered). For $5, it's worth checking out!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

11

11 - A nice number. A couple recent Brewers' first basemen have worn number 11. Hubby wears number 11 when he plays softball. The element Sodium has an atomic number of 11. Good old Prime number 11. Coincidently, the number of chin ups I did this morning. I am ecstatic!


I checked the new TT Home Abdominal Workouts website and it looks like the first 100 have been spoken for, but you will still get all the other bonuses if you order by Wednesday, July 23, at midnight (EST)! Join me in the quest for great abs!

Sunday, July 20, 2008

New Turbulence Training for Abs Program

Hey everyone! Summer is half over – do you know where your abs are? A couple weeks ago I got my copy of Craig Ballantyne’s new TT Home Abdominal Workouts and now it is back up for sale! This is a CRUNCH-FREE Abs program! And the first 100 copies come with a 3-month TT Basic Level Membership to the TT forums and workout of the month club (worth $59.85). CLICK HERE to order! If you do order, let me know and we can start together next week! (I have to finish TT 2K4 before I can start the Abs program.)

The new TT Home Abdominal Workout program includes 5 new workout programs including:

1) The 4-Week Beginner Introduction to CRUNCH-FREE Ab Workout

2) The 4-Week Intermediate Level ANTI-CRUNCH Ab Workout

3) And THREE Advanced 4-Week Home Abdominal Workouts

4) The "TT Abs 300" Workout Challenges (including one for beginners, intermediate, and advanced fitness levels)

5) The Bodyweight Abs program that you can do anytime, anywhere, without a single piece of equipment. (This program comes with beginner and advanced versions too!)


BONUSES…


a) The Advanced Ab Nutrition Meal Plans for Men & Women

b) The 5 Motivational Secrets to STOP Cheating on Your Diet and Never Skip Another Workout Again


When you grab your copy before Wednesday, July 23rd at midnight, you'll get:


1) The NEW "Hot Zone TT Fat Loss Workout"

2) "Bikini Ready Abs"

3) The Big 5 Fat Burning TT Circuit Workout


Check out Craig's abs and get his new program HERE!

Saturday, July 19, 2008

This Dinner Brought To You By The Color Blah

Variety is the spice of life but I read somewhere (and I apologize that I can't remember where at the moment) that if you are dieting, you should make your meals fairly uniform in color. Supposedly, when you have a variety of colors on your plate, it makes it more visually appealing and you eat more. So this was dinner the other night:
Dark meat chicken (2.75oz) with 1/4 cup quinoa (measured before cooking), 1 cup cauliflower and 1/2 cup applesauce. Very tasty. And I was very full afterwards. So Today's Tip would be: eat a variety of colors of food - just not in the same meal. Not sure if it really works, but as long as you are eating a variety of colors, and not the same color at every single meal all day long, it couldn't hurt to give it a try for a couple meals a day. I imagine it would be hard to make every meal uniform in color. I would have to give up my beloved oatmeal with fresh blueberries! Not gonna happen.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Inspirational Garbage

During my TT workout this morning, for my last set of reverse lunges, I was debating on using 25 or 30lb dumbbells, when all the sudden I heard Shirley Manson in my headphones singing, "Don't believe in fear, Don't believe in pain, Don't believe in anyone, that you can't tame".

I went with the 30lbs.


For those of who can't quite put your finger on what song that is, it's "Stupid Girl" by Garbage. I love that CD! I definitely work harder when I'm listening to good music. I guess that would be Today's Tip. Get yourself listening to some good music while working out! What's everyone else listening to these days?

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Neurosis Rears Its Ugly Head

I can be a very Type A person about some things. Fitness and Nutrition? Type A. Housework? Not so Type A. I go to restaurants with Hubby and I’ll ask him, “So, do you think this is about 2 cups of lettuce?” I have to know, so I can log it into Fitday. He must think I’m a little neurotic, or at least a little crazy, and God bless him for putting up with me.

I gained 80lbs with both of my pregnancies. After my son was born, I tracked everything and lost all the baby weight. After my daughter was born, I vowed that I wouldn’t get so crazy, that I didn’t need to get back into my skinniest jeans. I was wrong. I’m smaller now then I was when I got married. I weigh now what I weighed in high school. I feed on numbers, and measures, and planning – Oy! – the planning! I have my meals for the last 2 weeks of my Turbulence Training Transformation Contest already mapped out! Competition really brings out the best (worst?) in me. I see the results I’ve gotten with TT and I want to know how far I can go. I look in the mirror now and I CAN SEE MY ABS! Holy Cow – where have you been my whole life? (Now, if only I could get rid of the stretch marks!)

Sometimes I feel a little crazy and wish I didn’t know how many calories were in a tablespoon of peanut butter, or that my Subway sandwich has 1.83 oz of turkey on it. But overall, I think I enjoy it too much and would sincerely miss it if I stopped. It's my little hobby. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to start writing up my next workout (the new TT for Abs), which I am starting in 2 weeks.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Chicken Roll Up Recipe

I finally decided I wasn't feeling the layout here so I changed it. I think this format is much easier to read!

I meant to take a picture of dinner tonight, but I ate it all before I remembered! It was so good. Here's the recipe:

Chicken Roll Ups

2 chicken breasts (about 6 oz each)
1oz cream cheese or neufchatel cheese
1/4c shredded cheese (colby jack works well)
1T whole wheat flour
2T almond meal
2t garlic powder
1t chili powder
1 egg mixed with 1T water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray a baking dish with Pam, or other cooking spray. Mix in a small bowl the flour, almond meal, and spices (you could add salt and pepper, if desired). Pound the chicken breasts flat (about 1/2 inch thick or so). Place half the cream cheese and half the shredded cheese inside each one. Roll up the chicken and secure with toothpicks. Roll in egg/water then coat with flour mixture. Place chicken into the baking dish and spray a quick spray of Pam. Bake for about 20 minutes. Makes 2 servings. Enjoy!

Friday, July 11, 2008

I've Only Got 2 Weeks Left!

The Breakthrough Challenge is coming to a close in 2 short weeks. Only 16 days until I reveal my transformation. I need a countdown clock! TT 2K4 is kicking my butt! It's an upper/lower body split, and today was a lower body day. The Bulgarian Split Squats are killer! I've decided I'm just going to jump into the new TT for Abs right after I'm done with the contest. Usually after 12 weeks, you should take a week off, but my 12 weeks "on" aren't exactly lined up with the 12 weeks of the contest, so I should be fine jumping right in. Besides, I don't think I could wait a week - I'm pretty excited to start the new program. I'm going to start with the Intermediate Level.

If you are interested in checking out TT, Craig Ballantyne has 2 new free TT reports - one for women, and one for men. Click HERE for the free report for women. And HERE for the free report for men. Both reports include a free sample workout!

And a big shout out to Judy in cell block C (that's "C" for Cafeteria) if you're reading this! Hope your friend finds my blog useful!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Hormones, Drugs and Tattoos, Oh My!

So on Saturday, after doing those 10 chin ups, I read an article in Women's Health that said women can absorb some of the testosterone in semen, and well, the night before, hubby was home and...you know. In any case, I attempted chin ups again this morning and still got 10, even though I didn't get any extra testosterone last night. LOL

I went and got a filling today at the dentist and got 2 shots of Novacaine. For teeth that are more in the back, my dentist always gives one shot, then waits and gives one more. I learned today that whatever Novacaine-type anesthetic my dentist uses contains some form of noroepinephrine, which is why it makes my heart race, my head buzz and makes me a little anxious. Weird. I always wondered about that. Anyone else experience that?

Also, I went and had my consultation for a tattoo removal today! I am really excited to get this particular tattoo removed. Here's a little advice: don't let the guy at the tattoo parlor talk you into anything! I was young and naive. I've had this one for 10 years and I still don't like it.

And lastly, for Today's Tip, I just read this article on Yahoo! about how keeping a food journal helps people lose weight. The study involving 1,685 middle-aged men and women over six months found those who kept such a diary just about every day lost about twice as much weight as those who did not. You can read the whole article HERE. I use fitday.com to journal what I eat and recommend it!

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Zip A Dee Doo Dah

Zip-A-Dee-A, My Oh My What A Wonderful Day...Oh, hello there. You've caught me at a fantastic time. This morning I had 2 personal bests! My weight hit a new best - 137lbs, and I did a chin up test and got.....drumroll......10! Now these were my standard "not quite back down to a dead hang" chin ups, and the 10th one wasn't pretty, but I'll take it!

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Got My Copy of TT Home Abdominal Workouts!

Whoo-hoo! This looks like fun. Finally got a chance to read over my copy of the new Turbulence Training Home Abdominal Workouts that I got yesterday and it looks fantastic. There are some exercises I've never heard of before. Good thing there are pictures and descriptions of each exercise! I love the challenge of a new exercise. If you did all the workouts in the manual, there are 20 weeks worth! There are 4 weeks of Beginner, 4 weeks of Intermediate, and 12 weeks of Advanced (3 phases of 4 weeks each). I'm debating whether to start with the Intermediate or to just jump in with the Advanced. I'll let you know! I have about 3 weeks to think about it - I still need to finish TT 2K4. I just get excited picking out my next program!

Don't forget, the TT Home Abdominal Workouts manual is on sale right now for $27 only until Friday, July 4, at noon EST. You can purchase it by clicking HERE. This is different from the Original TT Program which can be purchased HERE. Don't miss out! I'm glad I picked up my copy. Check back for my results! (Check back in 3 weeks for my results in the Transformation Contest!)

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Special 48 hour TT Promotion!

Ready to burn belly fat and get a six pack for summer? I am and I think I'm going to have to go and buy this so I can use it after I finish my last 3.5 weeks of TT 2K4!

Men's Health expert, Craig Ballantyne, has the solution to your fat loss problems, and today he's doing something he has NEVER Done Before...For the FIRST TIME EVER...He's Cutting the Price on his New Turbulence Training for Abs Program in a Special 48-Hour Limited Time Promotion...So That You Can Burn Belly Fat and Work Your Abs in the Comfort of Your Own Home with these All NEW & Exclusive Turbulence Training Workouts...As you can see by HIS PHOTO (whoo-hoo!) on his new site, he knows how to get abs without doing crunches or long, slow boring cardio. And he'll show you all NEW workouts to help you do the same. Check out Craig's abs and get his new program HERE.

This is a special "Pre-Launch" Limited Time Offer...Once the Deadline hits, this offer will be REMOVED and the price will INCREASE to $39.95 when it is finally made available again. For the next 48 hours only, this product is available for only $27. You will get immediate access to the 12-Week Turbulence Training for Abs Program today for only $27...But the bonuses are NOT done...so in 3 weeks time, you'll also receive access to ALL of the soon-to-be-released Bonus Reports.

But this "Pre-Launch" offer is only available until July 4th, at noon, EST. So declare INDEPENDENCE DAY from your belly fat, and get started with the Turbulence Training for Abs program today. When this product is available to the world, it will sell for $39.95 - and it won't be made available again for weeks. So save money and time by grabbing your copy today for only $27. But hurry, this offer expires at noon on July 4th. Get started with the all NEW Turbulence Training for Abs Home Abdominal Workouts.

I'm going to go and get my copy now before I forget and miss the promotion!

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Book Meme

This was posted on Dad Rewrite and I got so nostalgic about all the books I had read I decided to play along.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
3a) Strikethrough the books you HATE.

1 Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (most of the first book only - I had trouble with the writing style - never read The Two Towers or Return of the King)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (most of it - my minor in college was Religious Studies)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
(sad, sad story)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen (started it a couple times, but never got far)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis (didn't care for it much)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (started it, but didn't get far)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (About a million times)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (Read it in French and English)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I've actually seen a lot of these as movies and have seen Les Miserables on the stage.