Weekly Update and Back to Weight Training

School started back this week for myself and for Chloe. I started Monday and Chloe started Wednesday. I was really worried about the added work necessary to get Chloe ready for school in the mornings and all of the classwork I'll have to do myself. Sunday though, I resolved to get everything organized for both of us for the week. First, We got Chloe's backpack ready, most of her lunch made (saving items like sandwiches or wraps for the morning), and her clothes picked out and ironed. For me, I got all of my books ready for my various classes, and checked in on my online classes first thing to have a general overview of what was due, when it was due, and I scheduled, dedicated time to work on my two online classes during the week. Guess what happened? The week was PHENOMENAL! I was still able to workout five days, Chloe was up and ready for school on time, and the lessened stress even helped my husband with getting up and around earlier than usual! It was awesome. I am sad with myself for not doing this earlier and also glad that I finally discovered the secret to morning success. I'm hoping that the upward swing keeps going and we can keep this school year stress-free and as organized as possible.

This week is the last week of my cardio-rich week. I still plan on working out only about 30 minutes a day, but I'm going to start lifting weights again four days a week. I use the website www.bodybuilding.com to find various strength training programs. A while back ago, I fell in LOVE with the Fitness Model strength training program and I am starting it back up tomorrow. Sundays are my rest days and Tuesdays and Thursdays are my hourlong cardio days. My days will look like this from now on:

Sunday: Rest
Monday: Chest, Shoulders
Tuesday: Cardio, Abs
Wednesday: Back, Traps
Thursday: Cardio, Abs
Friday: Legs
Saturday: Biceps, Triceps

I am really excited about starting this back up. Even though I didn't lose weight with my last session, it's because I was doing cardio daily and was consuming way too many calories. I was burning about 500 calories a session and consuming an extra 700 calories a day because of this. No bueno right there, folks.

Even though today is my "rest" day, I still wanted to get out there and do something. I took Chloe to play tennis this morning. Her wrist is a little sore from a volleyball practice incident, but she still tried hard and worked her butt off. It makes me so proud to see my daughter loves sports and loves being active. It's a testament to show that a mother and father who promote good health produce children who are healthy. It's got to be a scientific fact.

As far as last week, this is what I did workout wise. I didn't get into the gym but once, but I'm still taking advantage of the sunshine and warmth outside. I know it will be cold soon enough and I'll be spending the bulk of my weeks at the gym come tomorrow.  Here's what I did last week:

Sunday: Tennis and Cross Country Machine
Monday: Cardio/Strength Workout
Tuesday: Run 2 miles
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Run 2 miles
Saturday: Cardio/Strength Workout

Twitter, as usual, was booming last week with inspiration. Of course, you can follow me @summerbuis. Here's just a taste of what happened on Twitter:

Burn 100 Calories in 10 Minutes Who says that you don't have time to workout? Excuses, excuses!

It's never too late to change your life. Very inspiring

Meal Planning In A Nutshell

Do you really think you can't afford to eat healthy? SparkPeople Online show you exactly what $20 and less can buy!

Need an energy boost but don't like caffeine (like me)? Here are 7 energy-boosting smoothies, without the caffeine!

Shape Magazine adds to the debate on whether eating a big breakfast and small dinner is key to weight loss or not.


I'm looking forward to a great week this week! I've included a little bit of LUNCH-piration of a couple of Chloe's lunches last week and 50 Reasons to Exercise. I love it! Have a great week, friends! Keep up the good work and I'll see you on Twitter!

Last Week's Workouts and My Favorite Twitter Posts

What a week last week! It was my last week before school started. You'd think I'd take advantage of RELAXING the last week before school starts.... I wish I could have, but I did not. Working and prepping  for the oncoming semester was all I could do along with fitting in my workouts. I made it to the gym twice last week- TWICE!- but worked out five days. Here's what I did last week:

Sunday: 30 minutes cross country machine at the gym (374 calories)

Monday: 24 minutes cardio/strength workout (340 calories)

Tuesday: 50 minutes spin class (727 calories)

Wednesday: Rest

Thursday: Rest

Friday: Run 2 miles (327 calories)

Saturday: Run 2 miles (332 calories)

Last week on Twitter, I found a ton of inspiration! From #fitspiration posters to workouts to lunches that I'll try for my daughter during the school year, there's was a lot of healthy inspiration going on in the Twitter-sphere. Here are some of my favorites:

These 10 Commandments for Weight Loss came from my friend, Heather. Very inspiring.

Cosmo posted these great 11 Body Image Boosters.

Women's Health Magazine posed the question how large should your breakfast be?

FitSugar's 45 minute walk/run workout.

Whole Foods Market gave me some great ideas for Chloe's school lunches!

Finally, a great poster explaining why weight training rocks!

 Even though it's Tuesday, I'm going to post a weekly wrap-up every Sunday now so look for it! Enjoy your week. I hope you make the most of it!

Why I (Irrationally) Never Want Summer to End

With August comes many changes, the most notable being children and adults alike heading back to school and cooler weather. In my house, not only does my daughter go back to school, but I do as well.  I also work part time at a youth center as a tutor to gain experience in the education field. With school and a part time job on top of my full time job, as well as Chloe's activities (acro, cheer, volleyball, and Girl Scouts.... Thank goodness for my amazing husband for his help with towing her everywhere!), August through May is very busy in my household! For this reason, I was feeling some start-of-fall stress today. I was thinking of the things that I wouldn't be able to do and quickly came up with reasons why it was OK that this is happening.

My first irrational thought was "oh no! I can't workout outside as much anymore!" Wrong. If anything, the mild fall weather is more inviting for outdoor workouts. I have been in the gym non-stop for the better part of my summer. Only recently did I begin running again. The main reason being that I prefer running outside versus on a treadmill and it was just too hot outside for me to consider running (I'm a wuss, I know). The cooler weather means less humidity here in Kansas, less heat beating down on me, and more outside running time. I also LOVE hiking and biking the trails near here and it seems that I just don't do that at all during the summer months. I know I haven't yet this summer.

The next irrational thought I had was "we are going to have fewer daylight hours once summer's over." That's only kind of true. The summer solstice usually begins somewhere between the 20th and 23rd of June. The solstice brings the longest daylight hours of the year for us. So, *technically* the daylight hours have been getting shorter and shorter since the solstice this last June. And at any rate, I'm in bed and asleep by eight o'clock most nights, so even though I'll miss the extra sun, I'm really not missing those extra hours. If anything, they're kind of annoying to me since I'm trying to sleep with some light in my room (thank goodness for blackout shades!).

Then I thought about an outside activity that I love: Swimming. Namely, splashing in my in-laws' pool or sitting poolside, soaking up that sun that I love so much. Now I truly will miss that part of the summertime. I love being poolside or in the pool. There's something about the easiness of having a good book, a cocktail, and my kiddo laughing and having a blast that screams "lazy summer fun." In all honesty though, when I want to swim laps, I do it in the gym's pool. My in-laws' pool, albeit awesome, is round and doesn't have much room to swim productive laps.

My last irrational thought was out of pure vanity: Wearing dresses. I love dresses. Once it's warm enough, I throw on a dress and flip flops and I wear them until the weather forces me otherwise. I'm not a big dress person in the fall. It may have something to do with the cool chill up my skirt at any given time. Even with tights and boots, it doesn't have the same breezy appeal as a thin summertime dress. The funny thing though is I equally love fall fashion: scarves, jackets, boots, and skinny jeans. Writing this down actually makes me want the cooler weather so I can put on my new scarf that I bought on Tuesday.

While I reasoned with myself, I came up with reasons that fall is awesome. Fall is actually my second-favorite season, next to summer, of course. The turning of the leaves, the cool breezes, the fact that my birthday is technically in the fall.... Fall is pretty darn awesome. So while summer is great, I'm okay with it coming to a close... eventually. I would love maybe one more week of summertime weather. Then, when school and fall activities begin, the season can change and I'll be okay with that.

      Fall in Kansas is always gorgeous. 

    But the summer is so much more fun!

Why I Am Working Out Less... And Losing MORE

For weeks now you all have seen my check-ins with my calories burned, how long I've worked out, and the workouts I've reported. I've lost a little bit of weight and am feeling pretty darn good. However, the one thing that I noticed while on this intense workout regimen is that no matter how hard and how much I worked out, I wasn't losing as much weight as I was hoping to lose. I was wanting to lose 2 pounds per week (and if I'm being honest, I wanted to lose more than that weekly) and was doing well with staying within my activity level and eating within my daily calorie limitations. I wasn't seeing the results that I was anticipating. After a lot of thought (and a day off from the gym) I noticed a few things.

First, I wasn't accurately logging my calorie intake. I LOVE the Lost it! app. I use it every single day. However, the biggest food diary no-no that I was committing was I wasn't logging supper. After working out for an hour, I felt as if I could just eat whatever I wanted for dinner (remember taco night and spaghetti night? There was also pizza night, too) and it was fine. I deserved it. I worked my tail off.
Wrong. Because I wasn't logging those calories, I was eating (albeit reasonable portions) more calories than I had intended.

Next, I noticed although I was having my post-workout protein drink, I wasn't EATING anything. Huge no-no. When you work out, your body temperature raises and chemicals are released that make you feel wonderful afterwards, so food is the last thing on your mind. What happened then is because I only had a 96-calorie drink post-workout, I wasn't recovering nearly as much nutrients as I should have been recovering something more than 100 calories after a 500-calorie sweat session. Although the basic rule for weight loss is burn more calories than you consume, my body was basically telling me to piss off because I wasn't rewarding it with well-deserved nutrients within a reasonable timeframe.

Finally, I was actually working out WAY TOO MUCH! My body was craving rest. I worked out every single day and took a "day off" on Sunday. However, I still found myself in the gym on Sunday with my husband, doing something and doing my Sunday activities such as walking or biking or swimming. Our bodies crave movement and exercise and health, but I was really going overboard.

The results? Working out way too much (at least an hour a day; 70-90 minutes on cardio days), not properly logging my food intake, and not eating after a workout was a disaster. Although I reported a couple of pounds lost, I actually started this week at ground zero: 155 pounds. On Sunday, after I opted to actually SKIP the gym for once, I got to thinking.

At my lowest weight (which was 137 pounds last summer), I consumed an average of 1200-1500 calories a day during my diet phase. I did 45-minute cardio sessions three days a week and lifted a different three days a week. I had an alarm set and ate every three hours- NO EXCUSES- and logged every single bite that passed my lips. I had started that weight loss journey in December of 2011 weighing 163 pounds and weighed 137 pounds by spring break in March of 2012. I made simple changes then that made large strides.

Looking back at then versus now, I realize something: SIMPLICITY IS KEY FOR ME. Lately, I have been making weight loss and health too complicated. I was working out too much. I wasn't eating enough. I was making mistakes that cost me big time.

Now, I am logging everything I eat. My Lose it! app is my best friend. I discovered it had a barcode scanner that allows me to scan the barcodes for the foods I use that aren't fresh produce. I am back to setting my alarm to eat every three hours- NO EXCUSES! I am no longer logging in unnecessary hourlong sweat sessions daily. I'll keep using my existing workout model of four days weights and two days of cardio. Sundays are dedicated days off. The only exception would be if I know I'm going to miss a workout later in the week because of work or school or another obligation. I mean, I still have to be flexible and reasonable, right? Life throws curve balls at us all the time.

My results so far have been good. I realized this on Sunday, so I'm only five days into this new version. I've lost two pounds already this week and I felt better leaving the gym today versus when I walked out last week. I'm holding myself accountable now. My mantra that I chanted in the previous weeks has changed ever so slightly. Even though I consider myself still working out harder, I am also working out SMARTER. Making smarter choices for my body and my well-being.

I'm looking forward to see if this revised approach to weight loss is beneficial to me. As the week has progressed, it seems that I have made changes for the better. Of course everyone is different. For some people, working out for an hour or two every single day is what works for them. I want you to find what works for you. Make sure it's still out of your comfort zone though. Just because I'm only spending an 30-40 minutes at the gym on my lifting days doesn't mean that I'm taking it easy. I'm adding those weights. I'm super setting. I'm kicking my ass and making the most of the time I have there. And it feels wonderful. On my cardio days (one so far this week: my spin class) I'm pushing myself and making sure that I'm huffing and puffing when class is over. I still want to die when spin is done, but I love every minute of it!

Do what's best for you. Make small changes and don't expect results overnight. We all fall off of the wagon sometimes. Sometimes, we hold on too tightly to that wagon and won't budge. Either way, the goal is to do your best, try your hardest, and at the end of the day, make yourself proud! This is YOUR life and not anyone else's. It's your job to make sure that you are the happiest and healthiest you that you can be. And if that means you workout less to reap better benefits, then so be it. Just be sure at the end of the day you are proud of what you've done for yourself.

Low Sodium Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

There are quite a few things that I made on a regular basis. Weekly dinner menus in my house usually consist of a chicken day, a fish day, taco day, and a spaghetti day. I've been trying to make more conscious food choices for my entire family. While reading the ingredients and nutrition facts of a jar of spaghetti the other day, I was gobsmacked to learn that every single jar of sauce contained approximately 350-400mg of sodium PER SERVING!!! This is extreme considering the recommended sodium intake for the average person is somewhere on the lines of 1500mg daily. For some people the sodium in one serving of sauce is acceptable. However, a jar of sauce contains about seven servings and most people don't have just one serving of sauce with their noodles. With a single meal, you could easily consume the entire recommended daily allowance of sodium! For people with high blood pressure (like myself) that extra sodium isn't only unnecessary, but extremely unhealthy.

I left the store feeling hopeful though. I've made several food items from scratch and jumped on the chance to make my own spaghetti sauce. Within the hour, I had made a sauce that was sweet, tangy, and had just enough kick of spice that I will only make my own spaghetti sauce from now on. And the best part of it was the entire pot of sauce contained 200mg of sodium, and it was from the store-bought tomato paste! I added ground beef to my sauce, but you can add whatever else you want to the base sauce. Next time I plan on making a mushroom marinara instead of beef.

This is what you'll need for the spaghetti sauce:

6 medium tomatoes

1 medium onion

1 head of garlic (about 5-6 cloves)

1 large bell pepper

1 10-ounce can tomato paste

To taste:

Basil

Oregano

Thyme

Pepper 

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. In that boiling water, add the tomatoes. Boil tomatoes for one minute. The skin should start puckering and peeling off. Transfer tomatoes to a pot of cold water and peel the tomato skins off in the pot of cold water. Quarter the peeled tomatoes and transfer into an empty pot.

2. In the pot of quartered tomatoes, add the remaining vegetable (all chopped into small pieces), garlic (peeled and chopped as well), and the herbs. Put the stove burner on medium low and allow tomatoes and vegetables to stew for half an hour. Be sure to check the vegetables periodically so that they don't burn to the bottom of the pot.

3. Once tomatoes are mushy and there is lots of liquid in the pot (about 30 minutes), take a a potato masher and mash the remaining large tomatoes up into much smaller pieces. It will literally look as if you are making a stew.

4. Once the tomatoes and vegetables are mashed up, add the tomato paste. Mix all together and season additionally if needed. 

5. Allow spaghetti sauce to summer on low for at least another 15 minutes, taking time to stir frequently.

Once the tomato paste is mixed in, you can add in pre-cooked beef or raw mushrooms. Thicker veggies can be added in with the other veggies before you start stewing them. 

We put our sauce over a bed of blue and green noodles (Chloe's idea!) and served them with salad and garlic bread. This was the first time ever that I didn't feel guilty about spaghetti night at my house! I knew that it was healthy and hearty. The sauce got rave reviews in my house last night. Even our German Shepard, Ascha, liked it! 

I hope you give the sauce a try. It's extremely easy to make and you could put it over anything. I'm thinking about making a baked eggplant Parmesan with my sauce next time.

Happy Friday, everyone! I've worked out every day for the last 12 days. I'm taking a much-deserved day off from the gym, but will be back at it tomorrow! Have a wonderful weekend and I hope to hear your comments on the sauce!

July 24, 2012

What a day! Yesterday was a great cardio and abs day. As usual, I did my cycling class for my cardio. It was excellent. The cycling instructor did a new routine, which was more than welcome as she had done the same routine for six weeks (Group Ride format)! My heart got pumping, I was sweating like a crazy person, and I was begging for her to ease up on us. She never did and that makes me happy! :)

After cardio was done, I came home and did my ab workout. I decided to change it up because the two exercises at the gym was getting a little boring. I used the Nike Training Club app and I really felt the burn! I've included the 15 minute ab burner workout that I did. It shows the exercises to the recover stage. The idea is to do the exercises continuously- no rest- until your recovery period. You will repeat the circuit two more times for a total of three times. It was intense and much needed. My abs still hurt more than 24 hours later. I enjoyed feeling the burn deep down in my abs!

Today was my back and traps day. It was equally as intense! I can't wait to check-in tomorrow and share my workout and supper for tonight. I've included a shot of calories burned, dinner, and the Nike Training Club workout. I hope you guys give it a try on your next ab day. It's guaranteed to be tough and worthwhile. 

July 23, 2013

Planning in life is really important. I feel like I sometimes spend too much of my life organizing my life and other times I feel like I am frazzled and can't stay organized to save my life.  The good thing staying organized though is when I have a specific time set aside for things then I save time because I know when I'm supposed to be somewhere. This goes so much further than work, school, and Chloe's activities. I take time to schedule my health and fitness. My workout is usually the only time of the day that I have for myself and I cherish that time to myself. So I make sure I schedule everything and I don't compromise. If I have to schedule an appointment somewhere (doctor, school, etc) I schedule around my fitness. There's no need to skimp on your health. That should take center stage. I really feel that making my health a priority makes me a better employee, student, wife, and mother. I'm setting an example for my daughter on taking time to be healthy. My health helps me with being active and alert for work and school. I'll be able to be a wife longer because I focus on my health.

Health isn't only physical fitness. You should also take time for mental fitness: Reading, writing, and learning are as important for your mental health as exercise is for your physical health. One thing that I love to do to make my brain really work (and something that I had stopped doing for a long time until last week) is to play a game of chess. It requires thinking and strategizing. And, if we're being honest, it's one of the only things that I can beat my husband at! I'm teaching Chloe how to play chess, and Joe had never learned how to play until I taught him last week. It's so much fun connecting with my family this way, and something that we will be able to play together and share for years to come.

Yesterday was a good workout day. Yesterday was chest and shoulders, my crunches, and 40 minutes of cardio. I felt amazing after my workout. As always, my chest, shoulders, and abs were burning! I'm excited to get my workouts in for the week- mental and physical.

For my accountability report, I've included my calories burned during yesterday's workout, my calendar for you to see where I work in my workouts, and my new chess set that my fantastic husband picked up for me (for $8.00 no less!). Have a fantastic Tuesday, everyone! I look forward to sharing my change up in abs exercises with you tomorrow.