Well, I'm finally getting around to updating this from last week. It has been a busy week and I just haven't had the time to do it before now.
I'll start with last Friday, I did my usual strike class but Julie was in Chicago and Rachel was teaching. I don't know what happened that day but I thought I was going to throw up a couple of times. Great class! HA! I also did p90x weights at home that day and burned 990 calories that day. Wes and I also went to Recreation Unlimited in the afternoon with some friends and had a blast, he loved swinging on the big boy swings, going down the slide and he liked jumping on the trampoline too! That evening, we went over to a friends house for dinner and had pizza. That didn't help with my fat intake which I have to admit, I'm having a hard time keeping it low.
Saturday, I got up and went to spinning in the morning even though I was pretty tired that morning, I also tried to stay for yoga after that but Wes had a meltdown in the daycare because he was up late the night before and was tired so I had to leave about 20 minutes into it. I still managed to burn 915 calories. Mom and Alan came over that evening and Alan brought ribs and we had mac and cheese and baked potatoes, not the healthiest of meals but hey, it's the weekend, right?
Sunday, I did kenpo and burned 650 calories. We had another bad day, went to a friends for dinner and had strombolis that evening however in all of this, I never went over my calories, was probably just high on the of the fat which is not where I want to be!
As soon as the thaw began around here, my allergies started going crazy and I haven't felt fantastic this week but went to spinning on Monday, got there late and there was a different instructor (who I didn't care for), burned 650 calories.
Tuesday, I did my usual ashtanga yoga, I finally got back to running and did a mile and a half and then I came home and did weights at home too. So good calorie burning day this day. 950 calories burned, plus Wes and I went out and did some shopping and got him lots of spring/summer clothes so we are prepared for the warm temps, yay! Come on spring!
Wednesday, it's really nice out here today, the snow is melting and it's 60 degrees, though it's not helping my allergies. I went to spinning this morning and then piyo and burned 950 calories. I came home from the gym and vacuumed out my car and cleaned the grime off the windows and then I went to get my nails done. This evening, I'm going to a local cycling place for a ladies night that I'm kind of excited for, meeting 3 friends there and just looking forward to getting out of the house this evening, especially in this nice weather.
Tomorrow, it's supposed to be SUPER duper nice out. I HAVE to take the day off from working out because on Friday, I'm doing the resting metabolic rate test. I'm so excited to have this done and find out how much I should really be eating because I haven't had it done since before I had a throid problem. I will update everyone then!
Here's my workout log:
week 1 -4,200 calories burned
week 2 - 3,500 calories burned
week 3 - 4,150 calories burned
week 4 - 6,055 calories burned (I have to admit, that's kinda crazy!)
week 5 - 3,200 calories burned (need to burn at least 300 more this week!)
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. ~Henry Ford
Posted by Brooke and Brad Arnold at 3:22 PM 0 comments
Thursday, February 10, 2011
so unproductive today...
- I have been so unproductive today, ugh. I got up and got dressed to workout and never did. I have worked out every other day this week and have already passed my goal of burning 3500 calories this week and I have not eaten bad today so I don't feel terrible about not working out. I just needed to do p90x legs today so I will just have to do it tomorrow instead.
Yesterday, I had a great day and burned 1200 calories doing a spinning class and then piyo (pilates/yoga). I did have my body fat checked by Shaun at the gym yesterday and even though I am down 5 lbs, I'm not feeling wonderful about my body fat. I'm at 28% which is in the normal range of most people but last August when I had it checked last, I was at 24% but Shaun said that it can vary as much as 3% per person that checks it so it could have been wrong. I weighed more back then but that was also when I was training for the triathlon I did last summer and swimming in the morning so I was working out alot more. I definitely would like to get back to at least 24%, possibly lower if I can!
I wanted to post the p90x workout that I did on Tuesday and last Saturday, this was a different video than I had done before, it was chest, shoulders and triceps and didn't require a pull up bar so I liked that part of it. Though, there are a TON of push ups in this video. I just have to tell you that this is an amazing workout and if you're looking for a workout that you can do at home, this is a great one to do. So here we go... (I will admit than when I did this video, I didn't do as many push ups as were in the video because I did yoga that day and did alot of push ups that day and the day before).
I'm sure that most of these exercises can be googled if you're not sure what they are. Also, most of these you do as many as you can with the heaviest weight you can. - First is 3 in 1 slow motion push ups - this is wide, middle and chataranga
in and out shoulder flys (this is going out in front and then out to the side) - 16 with 10 lbs - chair dips - 30ish
- plange push ups - I did 25 - you can google dive bomber push ups, basically the same thing.
- pike press - I did 25. This is basically a downward dog and you do pushups with your head almost touching the floor.
- side tri rise - lay on your side, cross the arm that is laying against the floor across your chest and push up with the other arm.
- floor flys- you can use a paper plate under one hand, go out wide then switch hands with a push up in between.
- scare crows - hang your arms down like a scare crow and lift just your forearms. I did 10 with 10 lbs.
- overhead tri- I did 20 with 10lbs.
- 2 speed twitch push ups - 12
- y press - 10 lbs/15 reps.
- lying tricep extension - 20 with a 10 lb weight
- side to side push ups - 8ish?
- pour flys - 12 w a 5 lb weight. A lot of these exercises are probably what you imagine them to be but I didn't write down many descriptions and I don't remember exactly. Like I said, you can probably google them.
- side leaning tri's (leaning on a chair) - 12 with 10 lbs.
- 1 arm push ups - okay, I did 5 on each arm but what you have to do is move your knees out WIDE and my arm barely moved but watching the girl in the video, she barely moves either! :)
- weighted circles - 2 sets of 10 with 5 lbs, forward and back
- throw the bomb - like a tri extension did 10 with a 10 lb weight and 15 with 5 lbs
- clap or plyo push ups - I didn't even do these!
- slow mo throw - 8 with a 10 lb weight
- front to back tricep extension - 15 with 10 lbs
- 1 arm balance push ups - ha, yeah right!
- fly-row-press - 15 with a 10 lb weight
- dumbell cross body blows (you lay on the floor and since this is the last exercise, you do as many as you can) I did about 50 with 10 lbs.
So, that's all for today other than my training log...
Week 1 - 4,200 calories burned
Week 2 - 3,500 calories burned (sick with the flu)
Week 3 - 4,150 calories burned
Week 4 - 3,950 calories burned (still 2 workout days left this week)
Posted by Brooke and Brad Arnold at 4:26 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
mental note...
I just need to make a note of my calories for the past few weeks because I'm losing track of it.
Week 1 - burned 4200
Week 2 - burned 3500 (sick with the flu)
Week 3 - burned 4150
total is 11,850
I am in week 4 now and Sunday, I did the elliptical at home and burned 400 calories.
Yesterday, I went to a spinning and core class and burned 750 calories between the 2 classes. Then I came home and dug up ice in my driveway for about an hour and a half and I burned 1000 calories, that was hard work!
Today, went to ashtanga yoga and burned 600 calories. I'm also going to do p90x weights in a little while too.
So this week, I'm at 2750, looks like it's going to be a great week for calorie burning since it's only Tuesday and I'm already almost at my goal! Whoohoo!!!
This morning, I talked to Shaun who is a personal trainer at my gym and a metabolic specialist, he gave me some good tips, he said I should be taking fish oil to help me with weight loss which I used to take but then I ran out and just never bought it again. I had no idea that it would help with weight loss. So I bought a big bottle of it when I was at costco today (I think there should be a link here with some good information about fish oil).
He also told me about a lot of people being sensitive to gluten in their diets. I really don't think that's my issue because I don't have unexplained weight loss, if I did, that definitely would not be a problem with me.
I am very excited because I am going to redo the resting metabolic rate test which will tell me how many calories I burn a day. I have been wanting to do this since I found out I have a thyroid problem because I know that I was burning 1500 calories a day when I did the test before but not sure if I burn less than that now with the thyroid problem. Part of the thing that bothers me is that there isn't much information online about losing weight with a thyroid problem. There's alot saying that once your thyroid is regulated, you should be able to lose weight. Well I am and I do workout a lot and eat fairly healthy so what's the problem?
The next thing I talked to Shaun about is my protein and fat intake so I'm going to start trying to keep track of that. A lot of the problem is getting protein into your diet without the fat, so we'll see how I do with this challenge.
Yesterday, I had 79 grams of protein and 41 grams of fat.
2/6, I had 51 grams of fat (it was the superbowl, give me a break) and 46 grams of protein, okay, not a good day!
2/5, I had 35 grams of fat, and 36 grams of protein. Also apparently not a good day but I guess this is why I'm looking at it, hu? :)
2/4, wow this was a really bad day... 62 grams of fat and 85 grams of protein. We ate at culver's that day, guess I won't be eating there again anytime soon!
2/3, holy crap, 52 grams of protein and 70, yes, 70 grams of fat!!!!!!!!!! agh! (Oh, this was the day that I ate at Pizza hut for lunch with Taja, I thought I did okay having a big salad and 2 pieces of pizza but apparently not... of course, there is no nutritional value in iceberg lettuce anyway).
2/2 - 58 grams of protein and 76 grams of fat, holy hell, this just keeps getting worse. It's actually embarrassing to record this but I guess that's why I'm doing it so I will RECOGNIZE!!!!
This was the first day that I began recording my calories on my fitness pal so before that, I don't have record the nutrients like this. I was recording on the daily plate on my itouch but it doesn't show the nutrients like my fitness pal does. I will definitely be keeping an eye on this in the future and have to figure out where I'm going wrong because on 2/2, I ate at home and not really sure what I ate that was so bad that day other than a few too many cookies because I baked that day! Okay, off to do my weights now!
Posted by Brooke and Brad Arnold at 3:35 PM 1 comments
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Happy Thursday!

Posted by Brooke and Brad Arnold at 4:37 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Eat, Sleep, Train... that's my life or it feels like it is
It's been quite a week and haven't updated much because I haven't done much! Last Thursday, I came down with the stomach flu, it was horrible and I thought I was going to die (not really but it was bad). I was really, really sick on Thursday and Friday and Saturday and Sunday were pretty much used as recovery days although I did still have an upset stomach that lasted 6 days total thru the whole thing.
Monday, I finally went back to the gym and did a spin class and a 30 minute core class. I am still sore from the core class as I sit here and write this and it's Wednesday! I also did some pull ups on the assisted pull up machine too. I burned 1000 calories on Monday.
Monday evening, we got hit with a major ice storm and since I live 30 minutes from my gym, I knew I wasn't going to be going in on Tuesday. I planned ahead and did about 45 minutes on the elliptical and did about an hour of p90x yoga. I wanted to do more yoga but it was challenging with a 2 year old under me as I was trying to downward dog. :) I also did a lot of running around that day, I cooked a yummy broccoli cheese soup...
1 can cream of celery
1 can cream of chicken
about 15 oz of chicken broth
32 oz bag of frozen potatoes, carrots, celery and onion
about an additional cup of chopped celery
half of a large block of velveeta cheese
(place all in a pot and once soupy, I pureed all the veggies with my cuisinart hand held mixer) then add a bag of frozen chopped broccoli
I also made some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and some peanut butter chip cookies to calm my nerves during the ice storm. Listening to the second round of ice hitting the windows after we already had about an inch of ice probably was nerve wracking and feared we were going to lose power. Also, my husband was out working the roads thru all of this and I was also worried about him so I'm sure I burned some calories just from stressing out! HA HA But I burned 550 calories during my workouts on Tuesday.
Today, after the 2nd round of the ice storm, we were "iced" in and had gusting 35mph winds and I hear that the roads are still very bad so we planned to stay in. I was having a hard time getting motivated today, I was able to lose 2 lbs before I had the flu and then after the flu, I was able to keep off 5 but today, the 3 came back on and I'm only down 2 lbs. :( So today being home with Wes, I did workouts when I could. I did 30 minutes on the elliptical earlier. Then I looked back at my p90x legs workout and did that, then I eventually did the p90x abs and did another 30 minutes on the elliptical, all while cleaning a little here and there and playing with Wes. I feel like I had a more productive day yesterday but oh well. Throughout all of that, I burned 750 calories. So I'm up to 1550 for the week, at this time last week, I had already made my goal (which was good since I had the flu), I'm definitely going to have to workout tomorrow, Friday and Saturday to make it and hopefully I will! It's definitely very hard to workout at home and I'm hoping I can get to the gym tomorrow but will just have to see. I do at least have the kenpo x workout so I can at least do that tomorrow and I will definitely be back in the gym on Friday.
How are all of your goals going for the week?
Posted by Brooke and Brad Arnold at 6:04 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
No matter who you are, no matter what you do, you absolutely, positively do have the power to change. ~Bill Phillips
Well it's been a crazy couple of days. This morning in my spinning class, I was thinking about what I was going to write today and I was kind of depressed because last week I lost a pound finally and kept it off but then I weighed myself this morning and it was back on. Well as it turns out, my husband pointed out that I should have placed the scale on the tile instead of the rug so the 1 lb is still off! HA HA Yes, I guess I'm a dork! So knowing this, I'm in a much better mood!
So first, I will start off with my workouts yesterday. I went to the gym for ashtanga yoga, one of my favorites, love this class, it's so hot, I sweat like crazy and it's so fun to challenge myself to get better every week. Ashtanga is the same every week, maybe sounds boring but I love it, I love trying the balancing poses to see if I'm getting any better which I think I am but it's baby steps! Then after this class, I did some pull ups on the assisted pull up machine, I did 2 sets of wide, underhand and close grip. I don't remember how many I did of each. I also had to point out that I used the "assisted" pull up machine because several people on facebook thought I was bada$$ enough to do a pull up on my own, HA, I doubt it!
Wes and I came home after that, got some lunch and I got on facebook for a bit which is my usual routine, my plan was to do the p90x chest and back video after lunch but somehow I got inspired. A while back, my friend Jennifer invited me into a group called 'the mommy group' and a recipe exchange. I have grown to love these groups and seeing people post there everyday and being able to help each other so I decided that we needed a group of our own for those of us that want to live a healthy lifestyle. I called the group 'we got this' because I found it online somewhere and I loved it and I had actually forgotten it was kind of my friend Rana's motivational theme! She has run numberous mini-marathons and just last fall, she completed 2 marathons! So she did "got it" hehe
So, as of today, we are up to 88 members and lots of active posts going on. I couldn't be happier, it's so inspirational and motivating to me that people truly want to be involved in it and I'm just so excited about it.
I feel like I'm all over the place this evening. Let me get back to the fact that I did finally do the p90x chest and back yesterday after creating the group, although I feel like I only did about 20 minutes of it because having done ashtanga and yoga the day before, I had done a lot of push ups and I had already done the pull ups at the gym so I didn't have much left. But overall, I burned 950 calories in yoga and doing weights.
Today, as I said started out rough, Happy Hump day! I thought I weighed a pound more but I went to the gym depite being kinda bummed. Had a decent workout though I felt like my heart rate was a little higher than normal in spinning class, it was still a great workout and then I did 45 minutes of piyo (pilates and yoga) and felt really good in that class. With everything that happened today, I actually don't remember how many calories I burned but I think it was around 1000.
Wes and I then came home to do our usual routine of eating lunch and getting on facebook. Well, I came home to find that my laptop (I'm on our computer upstairs that we have) had been infected with a virus so instead of cleaning this afternoon and showering and cooking dinner, I had to burn all of my photos to cd's and thumb drives before the computer ate them all! Definitely not what I had planned for the afternoon. Thankfully, I did have time to vaccuum the house and finally got to get in the shower by 5:30. And we had pizza for dinner but considering I didn't eat much all day and was still only at 660 calories by dinner time, I don't feel too bad about eating 2 pieces of pizza! If I get hungry again later, I'm going to make myself a spinach salad or eat an apple, although I'm still a couple hundred calories under my goal so maybe a protein shake too.
That's about it for me right now, I'm going to go spend some time with my hubby, stepson and my son before he goes to bed. Tomorrow, I am going to go to an indoor play place to meet a couple of friends in the morning and then I'm hoping that I have enough motivation when I get home to do some p90x weights. I really have a hard time doing workouts if I don't do them first thing in the morning so I'm going to need help!
Here's my calorie log:
4200 calories burned last week
3500 burned this week (already met my goal)
Posted by Brooke and Brad Arnold at 7:34 PM 1 comments
Monday, January 24, 2011
If you want to feel rich, just count all of the things you have that money can't buy.
I think my little day by day titles are kinda boring so I decided to change it up. One that I would love to make my title but I know it would be too long is this one that I saw in my gym. I'm posting it here so that I can look back on it too because it really inspires me to do more...
I won't just reach my goals. I will crush them. I am here to work hard. To learn. To take back my life. Get a little help. Live a lot. I will not be content. I will push myself. And be pushed. I will build my body. And fill it with confidence. One on one. One day at a time. For one reason. ME!!!
So today, I had a pretty great day. I don't know why but I'm feeling really positive today, well since my workout anyway. This morning, I woke up thinking I hate the snow, I hate these dry cracked lips I have, I hate having to wear different pants to the gym and then change when I get there because it's too cold to wear capris. But then I went to David's spin class, I used to go to his class when he first started teaching there and I really didn't like him but now I really love it. I feel like I'm riding outside and he's a great motivator. I also did his 30 minute core class after that which was a killer (but still not as hard as p90x abs, ha). I did the p90x yoga yesterday which has lots of push ups in it and there were quite a few push ups in this core class today. I know you're saying that's not core but he did it more like yoga and planks. Anyway, I ended up burning 830 calories in that class today. I also went out and shoveled snow this morning too but I only burnt 93 calories and I'm not going to count that in my total for the week. Then Wes and I went to the mall to return a couple of things, I was proud of myself for not buying anything for myself but it's difficult to shop with a 2 year old! :) I did get a pretzel that I planned to share with Wes but he didn't like it so I ate that, bad me but sometimes you have to give in and I only eat those probably twice a year. So sometimes you give in but you have to let it roll off your back and keep on truckin'. :) Other than that, we went to a friends yesterday and I probably ate a little too much but it was all good because I worked out, today even eating the pretzel, I think I'm still probably way under my calories and not hungry. I'm also going to a special yoga event at the gym tonight which I don't normally like doing in the evening but I'm going to do it anyway because Tyler will be here and it will give him and Brad some time together and my friend Andrea is going who I haven't seen forever so she kinda talked me into it! That's why it's good to have friends that workout and keep you motivated!
- My week last week 4200 calories burned.
- So far this week 1550 burned
- 5750 of my 21,000 calories burned challenge!
Posted by Brooke and Brad Arnold at 4:08 PM 0 comments