HotBlonde's Blog

Sigh… What can I say about this travesty?? I am dumbfounded. I gained 14 pounds in 7 days! How is this even humanly possible??



Well, as reported in the thread this last week I was not perfect on my diet this last week and I actually didn’t even go to the gym at all. My original plan was to take only the second half of Monday off of my diet and have fun and then get right back on track the next day and hit the gym and stick to my diet for the rest of the week. You know that I got really sick on Tuesday and ended up not eating for the first half of the day and then ate off my diet for the second half of the day. Wednesday I did perfectly on my diet and I did well for the first half of Thursday. If I remember correctly I did well Friday until I decided to go out Friday night with a girl friend of mine. I did not overdo it that night but did eat off my diet. Saturday I did well all day on my diet until I decided to go out with another friend and I partied it up pretty hard. Lots and lots of booze and food. Yesterday, Sunday, I was hungover and decided to join EuropeanHottie at her gym since she was going to the sauna. I did not eat until the second half the day when me, EH and her boyfriend ended up doing what we often do which is hit up several food joints for food and drinks. If I remember correctly we ate and drank at 5 different places. Even though we usually eat and drink a little bit here and a little bit there it obviously all adds up. I closed the evening last night at a pizzeria joint that had karaoke. I “had” to stay cuz I loooove to sing and ended up staying and drinking even more. I took a cab home cuz EH and her boyfriend were tired and left an hour or so beforehand and I even had the cab take me through fast food drive through for my “last” meal before getting back on track. You know, the usual “I’ll start my diet on Monday” bit. Yikes.

The funny thing is yesterday when I was hanging out with EH and her boyfriend, Jojo (that’s her boyfriend’s name) told me that I looked different than what I looked like earlier in the week. He said, kindly of course, that I looked heavier and not as svelte. I told him that I noticed myself earlier that morning when I looked in the mirror that my face looked more bloated and full. And the funny thing is when I was putting on my swimsuit that you guys saw me pictured in in my 8-week progress photo, it seemed that my swimsuit was tighter than I remembered. It still fit but it seemed more difficult to get on than it had on my photo day 3 weeks prior.



Boy do I feel dumb. I was riding high and thinking I’ve been doing all great, having my weigh-ins be ahead of schedule acting like nothing could bring me down. Let me tell you my weigh in this morning was reality smacking me in the face. Jojo is guessing that 8 pounds of my 14 pound weight gain is fat that I gained, but I don’t think it could be that high, I don’t think that’s possible. We all know that in order to gain a pound of fat you have to consume an EXTRA 3500 calories on top of what your body already burns. At 211.2, which is what I weighed in last week, it shows (you can see it reported on my chart) that my body at that weight burns 2,327 calories a day just normally. If I gained 8 pounds of fat then that means that I would have had to consume an extra 4,000 calories a day, totalling 6,327 calories each and every day last week. I know that even though I admittedly over indulged on a few days I did not consume that many calories per day each day last week. But even to gain 14 pounds is kinda scary for a couple reasons. #1 Even if this is water weight I am scared that my blood pressure is sky high and am hoping I haven’t harmed my body. And #2 I am very nervous about this challenge cuz I am scared for the first time now that I could actually lose this challenge! I am now committed to paying out $975 if I lose this challenge. I went from being totally confident that I could not lose this challenge to feeling very uneasy. I am hoping and expecting to lose the majority of this weight this coming week so my weigh in next Monday could put me at ease, but sheesh! I still can’t get over the 14 pound weight gain. I’m guessing it has a whole lot to do with the amount of sodium I had consumed this whole week. Going from only 1,740 mg of sodium on an average day to god knows how much I consumed this last week. I know it was a lot!

Well anyway, I am not planning on messing up any more. I had no idea that taking time off would have offset me to such an extraordinary extent. I calculated that the last time I weighed 225.2 was 37 days ago! This week off put me back more than 5 full weeks!!! I’m still in shock, and VERY curious to hear what you guys all think about all of this!

So, 10 weeks down and 39.6 pounds lost. Not bad! And when someone usually asks me how much I’ve lost so far, I usually round up or down to the nearest whole number, so in this case I can technically say I lost 40 pounds in 10 weeks. Woo hoo!



Here is a chart I’ve made of my progress.



As you can see on the chart I am ahead of schedule. Actually 6.4 pounds and 16 days ahead, but who’s counting?? Lol. I’m 25% of the way through this challenge, 44% of the way to my 90 pounds weight loss challenge goal, and 34% of the way to my 117 pounds weight loss personal goal. I’m still considered obese by clinical standards but I’m no less happy about my progress. Once I lose an additional 14.2 pounds or more I will no longer be in the obese category! And even though that’s good and true it just means I will be moving into the overweight category instead. But hey, progress is progress!

I’m trying to figure out how much I’ll weigh and my body fat % by the time I hit October 17th. I used a machine at my gym that measures your body fat % but I think it came out a little too low.



It shows that it estimated that my body is 38.2% fat. I don’t think that is right cuz the weight we put in was 214 pounds. This would mean that my total lean body weight is 132.3 pounds. I don’t think that is right. I asked EuropeanHottie if she wanted to go get hydrostatic testing done with me, which is the most accurate way to measure body fat % but she kinda hemmed and hawed. So I’ve kind of estimated body fat percentage in my head. The chart below shows body fat percentage categories.



Now, I’ve found through other sources that a woman my height should weigh no less than 122 pounds or else I’ll be considered underweight. And according to the chart above the lowest amount of essential fat a woman’s body needs is 10%. Now I know my following calculations are not going to be accurate, but I’ve made some assumptions. Assuming at 122 pounds I’ll be 10% fat, that means that my body fat would be 12.2 pounds and my lean body mass would therefore be 109.8 pounds. Now of course my lean body mass could go up or down depending on how much muscle I have, water weight, etc., but I’ve just done this just to get an estimation only.



If my calculations are correct, or close to it, then I would be 49% fat right now, now 38.2%. For some reason the body fat percentage category goes from “average” to “obese”. I don’t know why that is. That would mean at 160 pounds my body would be considered average but at 161 pounds I would be obese. Maybe by obese they mean “overweight or obese”. I don’t know. Oddly enough my goal weight for the challenge is 160.8 so I would technically be out of the average category. But again, this is all according to my calculations which are not precise. And actually the source that said that a healthy weight for a woman my height is 122 and above also says that it’s still considered healthy up to 164 pounds, so according to that I’m good. Also another funny thing is my personal goal weight has been 134 pounds, and a trainer at my gym said that I should aim to be at 18% body fat, and according to my calculations 134 pounds and 18% body fat line up with each other. Pretty cool!

So I lost more than expected last week. I’ll never get tired of saying that! I lost 3.4 pounds last week. I’ve lost a total of 36.1 pounds last week which means I’ve lost 40% of my 90 pound weight loss requirements for the challenge. The 36.1 pound loss also represents 31% of my 134 pound goal weight. Feeling great!



As mentioned previously, I started doing interval training from a website that I’ve been getting a lot of information from. The main website is IntervalTraining.net. I read the beginner’s article and it told me to start with the “Lose Belly Fat Fast” interval training which, despite it’s name, really is for people not used to interval training but it’s designed to get your body acquainted with interval training over a minimum of an 8-week period. Last week wasn’t too bad. I did my first workout of week 2 this morning and boy!... talk about a tough workout! I was able to make it through but am nervous about Wednesday’s and Friday’s workouts. They say not to advance to the next week’s workout until you’ve finished all 3 workouts during the week you’re on. Not sure yet whether I’ll have to repeat this week yet.

Following is a quick rundown of the interval training in the 8 week beginning stages. Just so you know “personal physical effort” or ppe is my term to describe how hard I’m pushing myself physically. Example 0% would be laying doing nothing at all and 100% would be running for my life, the fastest I can. I’ve italicized the change in each week compared to the previous week.

Week 1:
5 min warm up (from 10% up to 40% of my personal physical effort)
6 sprint intervals at 30 seconds each at 70% of my ppe
90 second recovery intervals at 40% of my ppe in between each sprint interval
5 min cool down (from 40% down to 10% of my ppe)

Week 2: (my current week)
5 min warm up
6 sprint intervals at 30 seconds each at 90% of my ppe
60 second recovery intervals at 40% of my ppe in between each sprint interval
5 min cool down

Week 3:
5 min warm
6 sprint intervals at 30 seconds each at 90% of my ppe
30 second recovery intervals at 40% of my ppe in between each sprint interval
5 min cool down

Week 4:
5 min warm
8 sprint intervals at 30 seconds each at 90% of my ppe
30 second recovery intervals at 40% of my ppe in between each sprint interval
5 min cool down

Week 5:
5 min warm
10 sprint intervals at 30 seconds each at 70% of my ppe
30 second recovery intervals at 40% of my ppe in between each sprint interval
5 min cool down

Week 6:
5 min warm
12 sprint intervals at 30 seconds each at 70% of my ppe
30 second recovery intervals at 40% of my ppe in between each sprint interval
5 min cool down

Week 7:
5 min warm
14 sprint intervals at 30 seconds each at 70% of my ppe
30 second recovery intervals at 40% of my ppe in between each sprint interval
5 min cool down

Week 8:
5 min warm
15 sprint intervals at 30 seconds each at 70% of my ppe
30 second recovery intervals at 40% of my ppe in between each sprint interval
5 min cool down

These exercise sessions last from 15 minutes 30 seconds long from start to finish to 24 minutes 30 seconds long and that’s it. I do this Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I still do my 45 minutes of high intensity cardio on Tuesdays and Thursdays but don’t do any intervals during those workouts. 5 min warm up, then get my heart rate up to 149 bpm, keep it there for 45 minutes, then 5 min cool down. I checked my heart rate monitor today after my workout and I got up to 177 bpm. Wowser, did I feel it! This is 95% of my maximal heart rate (which is different from my personal physical effort). I’m excited to see myself progress over the weeks, even if it takes me longer than 8 weeks to get acquainted. After I finish and get through all 8 weeks I will be following just a normal and standard HIIT program from what I understand. Supposedly you can use similar interval exercises for weight training too. I’m excited to look into that as well.

So here’s the thing. Even though I was huffing and puffing pretty badly during my cardio session today, it shows that I only burned 163 calories. If I use the same machine tomorrow to just do my regular 45 minute cardio session it will show that I will burn around 345 calories. That’s more that twice as much than I burn in my HIIT session. I know I touched on all of this briefly but HIIT is actually supposed to be better for FAT loss than the 45 min cardio session. Briefly, during the 45 minute cardio workout, or any high intensity workout for that matter, your body only burns calories during your workout and then quickly if not immediately tapers off. The HIIT sessions cause your body to burn energy in the form of fat for up to 38 hours after your session. I’m including a graphic below that was posted on the website.



I still can proudly say that I haven’t strayed once from my diet or skipped a single workout. I hope to stay 100% committed throughout this whole process. EuropeanHottie is trying to convince me that I can let loose on my birthday, which is May 13th, but I don’t want to do anything to mess this up. I’m sure those betting against me would want me to but it’s just too risky. I had originally planned to come to the WoV get together May 12th in Vegas, but as I mentioned in the beginning of this journey I won’t be going on any trips at all during this challenge. Even getting away for half a day with EH to Universal Studios poses too many temptations!!

According to Monday's weigh-in last week I lost 5.6 pounds. This was totally unexpected. The week before I only lost 0.4 pounds and to then lose 14 times that amount the next week was a big surprise! I have officially lost 32.8 pounds in 8 weeks. This is 36% of the weight I'm supposed to lose in this challenge. In just under 2 months. Not bad, huh? I still need to lose another 57.2 pounds, but I don't think it should be a problem. I'm still doing and enjoying doing the things I need to do to lose weight and so the program is moving smoothly along. And speaking of the program...

EuropeanHottie goes to 24 hour fitness and I go to LA Fitness. She had signed me up for a free 7-day pass at her gym. Even though I was not well on Saturday I was feeling better on Sunday and decided to go with her to her gym. I put in a session of regular 45-minute cardio and then we spent some time in the sauna, steam room and I dipped in the jacuzzi there. I went with her back to the gym on Monday where I did my usual full-body workout and then did a 23 1/2 minute HIIT (high intensity interval training) cardio session. I stretched a bit after and we were out. I wanted to go again with her today but she was not feeling well. I planned on just hitting up my gym to put in a 45-minute regular cardio session but I haven't been feeling well either and will make up this workout this coming Saturday instead. EH likes to poke fun at me, always nicknaming me "Anal Annie" for my constant attention to detail, organization and such. She thinks it's funny and typical of me that I carry around a detailed ,organized, and color-coded chart of the exercises that I need to do during my Monday, Wednesday and Friday workout sessions. Here's a pic of my clipboard and the chart I created to keep things organized:



Her gym is pretty nice. I know the staff there wants me to sign up but to me my gym can provide me with everything I need even though it's not as fancy-shmancy as her gym. If hers was closer to me too I might consider it, but mine is convenient and well-enough stocked that I don't need to switch gyms at this point. I still plan on using the rest of my 7 day pass at hers, which ends this Saturday.



I had planned on going through my closet after the 6th week and reassessing my clothing situation then but had been busy. I finally was able to do it today. I think I will do this every 8 weeks, not every 6 weeks. I filled up 3 grocery bags full of clothes that I am giving away to the Salvation Army. I was able to move a bunch of clothes from my "waiting" area of my closet over to my "can wear now" side of the closet. It felt really good to put on clothes and see how they fit on my "new" body. Pretty awesome feeling. The bathing suit you saw me in in my 8-week picture is one that I never wore before cuz I was never able to fit in it!

Anyway, I had started eating yogurt as my evening snack last week which has been fun so far trying out different fruit combinations and such. And this week I swapped out my Monday hummus and carrots dinner with sockeye salmon and kale salad. I had mentioned previously that I was switching these out so that I could have more omega-3's and calcium in my diet (not to mention a bit more protein). The kale salad is pretty yummy and simple. I got the recipe from a link on the Whole Foods website. I also picked up more Mrs. Dash salt-free seasonings (and a couple store-brand ones). I have a total of 9 of them now. 2 of them I use exclusively in my weekday morning eggs. The other 7 I rotate each time I cook my chicken or salmon, which happens to be 4 times a week. I like to find ways to make eating healthy fun. I sometimes put my fruit and nuts snack in a cup instead of a small bowl and also bought a crinkle-cutter on Amazon.com to make my carrots more fun to eat. I can use the crinkle-cutter for other vegetables as well eventually, like potatoes and zucchini and etc.



So I am still on track to hit my challenge goal after 30 weeks which is 10 weeks early. And if all goes well I can still hit my personal goal weight of 134 by the weigh-in date. Not sure if I'll want 134 pounds to be my exact weight at the time cuz I've been considering more important things such as my BMI and Body Fat Percentage. But either way I'm on the right path to success!

So… I weighed myself Monday morning and it appears last week I only lost 0.4 pounds. Not even a ½ pound! WTF? Lol.

Anyway, in case you’re wondering, I did NOT cheat on my diet. I also did not skip a single workout and in fact, per last week’s blog, I actually did even MORE exercise than before. I added in a full-body weight resistance workout that I do 3 times a week now, Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. I still did my usual 5 days a week of 45 min of high intensity cardio. The thing is usually I work out at 80% of my maximal heart rate (MHR) when I do cardio but last week I had a hard time getting it all the way up to there and keeping it there. I think it had a lot to do, if not everything to do, with the soreness my muscles were feeling from my weight training. And boy was I sore! So much so that one morning last week after I woke up in the morning it was hard for me to stand up and walk out of my bedroom. My muscles were incredibly sore and felt wobbly, unstable and weak. I was even limping for several days. A few times my right quads would momentarily give out and I’d almost lose my balance. During one of my visits at my chiropractor’s office that happened and a couple of people gasped and reached out to catch me, asking me if I was ok and needed help. Luckily I did not fall. When one of the therapists went to use the big vibrating muscle massager on me I could barely even tolerate it on my sore calves. He was nice and since he had a little bit of extra time he put some special lotions on them and rubbed them. So I was kinda bummed that I didn’t get to do my cardio as intensely as I have been. Obviously I want to burn as many calories as I can and working at a somewhat lower intensity overall meant I burned less calories than I would have ideally liked to have burned. I seemed to have an issue more so on the Stair Climber and Stair Master machines but no issue getting my heart rate up to and maintained at 80% MHR on the elliptical machines.

Anyway, I’m still going strong. This is the week that I will be eating yogurt with fruit as my evening snack instead of my usual avocado and pita chips snack. I’m gonna vary up my yogurt snack each day by changing up the fruit and dried fruits in them each day.

Luckily this week I’m not feeling any soreness any more, or very, very little. I stretch my calves and hamstrings 2 minutes each muscle after each weight resistance workout. Also, in regards to exercise I’ve started doing something different this week with my cardio. After talking to my trainer friend he told me that 3 days a week when I do my cardio I should do a 20 minute or so interval training cardio session instead of my usual 45 minute session. He told me that my priorities should be ordered in this way: 1) Intervals 2) Strength Training 3) Regular cardio. For those of you who are not familiar with interval training you basically warm up for 5 minutes then do 6 to 10 cycles of extremely high intensity cardio (95% MHR) followed by very low intensity cardio (60% MHR), each a minute or so long. After doing a minute or so of each 6 to 10 times you then cool down and then you’re done. There are other ways of doing it but this is the way I’m going to start. I’m excited to see what the results of my interval training will be.

I also visited my primary care doctor this week. I had blood work done a week before I saw her and she told me the results. She siad my triglicerides is 70. Don't know what that is but she said it's good. She told me my HDL was 42, my LDL was 77 and that my total cholesterol is 143. Not bad, huh? I told her that I'm eating about 247mg of cholesterol a day and that my nutritionist had suggested I lower that but the doctor told me that since my total cholesterol is at 143 that that's good and I don't need to change anything. I also told her that I keep hearing conflicting advice on how much sodium to consume each day. She told me 2,000 mg a day or less. This is good as my new diet consists of an average of 1742 mg per day. And the best news of all... she took me off my blood pressure meds! So step by step along the way I am starting to reap the benefits of my continuous weight loss.

So if any of you are wondering whether I’m disappointed at the small amount I lost this week, I am not disappointed. I’m still excited about the challenge and going full speed ahead. Even EuropeanHottie came and worked out tandem with me this morning. She even took a video of me working out on the elliptical. I was planning on posting it on here but I am embarrassed at how fat and dumpy I look so I’m not going to show it. I will, however, reserve the video tape and if the Doctor Oz show wants to use it to show a part of my “before” then I’m ok to show it then… after I’ve already gotten into great shape!!