First weigh in

As of today, I am nearly six pounds lighter than last week! I met with my nutritionist this afternoon, and was delighed to see the numbers on the scale go down from where they were last Thursday. She was really happy for me, and was impressed when she reviewed my diet and exercise log for the last week. I am now starting phase 2 of the program where I will still do shakes, lean protein, and healthy fat, but will also add back in non-starchy vegetables. I'm so excited to be able to have tomatoes, onions, and garlic again. Food just doesn't seem the same without those ingredients.

Yesterday, I worked out with J. and went back to my normal routine of cardio for 35 minutes and then weight training for the last 25 minutes. This time he had me do the upper body weights along with a couple of lower body leg exercises on the machines. I did crunches on the exercise ball again, and about died at 13, but then pressed through to 20. We ended with the plank, although he modified it this time due to my back. Instead of doing one full 30 second hold, I did the plank in two sets of 15-seconds and he had my hand placement a bit different. It helped to better support my lower back, which tends to be pretty fussy.

Now I'm just trying to work on getting in at least 5000 steps on the days that I work out and 10,000 steps on the days that I don't work out. Yesterday afternoon when I started to feel a bit drowsy, I headed outside and walked around one block at work. That added a good 2000 steps to my day, and got me to 6615 steps total. Today I did 45 minutes of cardio on the elliptical machine, but was still able to get in 7141 steps aside from that workout. I did part of that just walking around my condo while talking on the phone this evening with my mom and sister. I still have yet to hit 10,000 steps on my pedometer, although I'm fairly sure that on the workout days I hit more than that - I just can't wear my pedometer while I work out. Those steps don't count. The pedometer measures my non-exercise activity, and they are very interested in that because people tend to slow down their non-exercise activity when they start working out. This is because their body tries to conserve energy. So the pedometer is there to make sure that you keep up at least the same level of daily activity you did before starting the workouts.

Anyway, I think I'm getting the hang of all of this stuff. I'm so happy to have lost weight this week, and it will be nice to add some veggies back into the mix. Here's to phase 2!