Happy holidays!

Wishing everyone the merriest of holidays this season and a wonderful new year. After 7 Christmas get togethers in 10 days, I am feeling like a bloated piñata. Ugh! I made my husband pinky swear we are going to the gym tonight when we get back from our last family gathering because we are both feeling fat and crappy. My body would hate me if I wait until 2013 and a New Years resolution. Plus I have to get my week 4 fitness challenge done before Thursday! Yikes. Have a blessed day and I hope you are all surrounded by love, family and friends.

Week 3 Fitness Challenge

Week 3 challenge

3x’s 30 minutes of cardio

3 minutes of plank

100 lunges

100 jumping jacks

As always, you can split these up however you want over the course of 7 days.  Let us know when you are done.  Kick some butt! 

Lead us not into temptation

Dear gods of fat and calories, please be on my side in the next few weeks.  Today is food day at work.  It’s gonna be a doozy.  By 7 am there was already taco rollups, seasoned pretzels, almond bark pretzels, cookies, cucumber sandwiches, little smokies, taco cheese ball, bagels, pickle wrap dip and the list goes on.  Not even half the team is here yet.  Yikes.  Tomorrow they are catering in lunch.  This weekend we head to my parents for Christmas with my siblings, nieces and nephews.  There is never a shortage of food at my mothers.  Word on the street is she’s baking for 5 days straight.  God forbid we run out of cookies and goodies on her endless tray of love.  Next Wednesday is our team holiday party with lunch at Bravo Italiano.  Then home again for two more Christmas’s and then back to Indianola for Christmas Eve morning breakfast extravaganza at Mama Linda’s.  The thought of all the parties and food temptations that will be in front of me in the next few weeks just about makes the button bust off my jeans.

Some things I’m going to try to practice:

Moderation-there will be cookies consumed but this is where will power comes into play so that it’s not a dozen!

Keep moving-walking, dancing, football, chasing the kids.  Anything but stuffing my face and then sitting on the couch. 

Plate party-using a smaller plate so it looks full, helps control portions and making sure there is some healthy alternatives like the veggie and fruit trays on there.  

Week 2 Fitness Challenge

Who is ready for the Week 2 Challenge??? It's going to be really similar to Week 1 with a little addition.

If you want to do it with us, here is this week's challenge:

30 minutes of cardio 3x’s for the week

100 sit ups

100 squats

50 push-ups

Each week challenge will run Thursday to Thursday.

*The squats and sits up can be broken up however someone likes. 5 days of 20 each. 33 3x’s in a week. 100 in one shot. 14 a day for everyday and 16 on one day. Whatever works for you. Just try to get 100 of each by next Thursday, plus your cardio. The push-ups can be broken up the same way.

Just make sure to let us know when you're done!!!  

I finished my squats, push-ups and sit-ups Sunday morning, and boy do my butt and thighs feel it. . I have one more 30 minute cardio left which I will do tonight.  

First time ever

I went to the gym last night after work. It was an internal debate whether to take advantage of 60 degree weather in Iowa in December or really pound it out on the treadmill.  The treadmill won.  Yesterday was my friend Kelly Jo's first day at Biggest Loser Resort.  She is the last of the 10 of us Biggest Loser Year of You winners that get to spend a month at the resort.  It's amazing that 2012 is almost over. I can't believe it.  Seems like a lifetime ago I was in Malibu.  Anyway, I decided in her honor, and because I haven't been pushing to the brink lately, that I would do a mountain class on the treadmill, BLR style.  It was a butt kicker!  After that I did my 100 sit-ups for my Week 1 fitness challenge.  Then 50 squats.  I was going to finish my squats when I got home but we had some drama and a car accident that pretty much derailed the night at the Hugen Casa.  Luckily, my step-daughter is ok but my car is not.  But the strangest thing happened as I fought back tears and tried to figure out what we were going to do without my car, I didn't reach for food.  This may be the first time EVER.  In fact, I was so upset, I was hardly hungry even though it was 9:30 at night before we finally got around to eating dinner.  I'm usually ravenous around 6 pm.

So I still have 50 squats to finish before Thursday.  The cardio and sit-ups are done. I'm hoping to finish tonight since I'm leaving for Chicago on Wednesday for work and I'm pretty sure that sit-ups will be the last thing on my mind while we're filming.  I am, however, packing some workout clothes and hope to make it to the hotel gym for a little while while we're gone.  I googled the Hard Rock's amenities and this gym looks good to me!  It's a 24 hour fitness center and they call it the Body Rock.  Guess I will have no choice but to "rock" it out.  Ha!