35 years old mom, focusing on getting fitter and losing weight. Follow my progress -
And I guess I should be real happy about that one pound too, being as it was a rest week, with almost no exercise. Well, I did run once, and I did walk almost every other day, but no intense workouts whatsoever. Reason being that I’m waiting to do another Cortisol test and see if my body is over the stress phase. My gym instructor said no more training until my Cortisol levels balance out. Of course, nobody knows for sure if the reason for the elevated Cortisol levels is working out/dieting, but it could be. Stress is another possible suspect, and then some rare medical diseases (hopefully, we won’t get to that point). I did have a rather stressful week here, with some issues with the family, and I am actually taking my Cortisol test today, so let’s hope for the best 
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September 16th, 2007
I’ll start with the good news - I’ve lost another 3lbs over the past week. Now to the not so good news. Due to elevated levels of Cortisol in a 24hrs urine collection test that I’ve had, my gym instructor, as well as my physician strongly recommend taking it easy with the training regime for at least a few weeks.
Cortisol is a stress hormone that is secreted when the body is under stress. It could be an injury, emotional stress or intensive exercise. Apparently, it’s why resting between workouts is so important. You need to give your body and muscles time to recover from the cortisol rush and get it back to normal levels. This is when your muscles get built too, during the recovery time.
I have been pushing it real hard lately, with daily workouts, including running. Maybe it was more intensive than it should have been. There could be other reasons for the elevated levels of Cortisol, and they will all be looked into, but for now, trying to reduce physical stress levels by switching to 3 workouts a week and making them less intensive (walking rather than running), is what I’ve been told to do 
I am still sticking to my diet, though making a point of eating properly too, for the same reasons (extreme dieting is stressful to the body as well, apparently). I just hope to keep losing some weight this month all the same
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September 8th, 2007
Just weighed in this morning to discover that I’m down to 103.8 kg or 229lbs! That’s roughly 2kgs or 4lbs down the scale - woohoo!
What’s more, I think I went at least one size in the past six weeks, since I started this. People have been commenting over the past 2 days how my figure has changed. It definitely looks like most of the weight went off my waistline/tummy 
I have been sticking to low GI eating almost exclusively. I stay away from rice and potatoes and get my carbs from whole-wheat breads, pastas and legumes. I even allowed myself a scoop of ice-cream this week, calculated into my carb intake, because apparently ice cream, even with white sugar, doesn’t create a high glycemic load. That said, I am pretty sure I averaged around 1500 calories a day this week, not a whole lot more. In fact, I could go with less, but I force myself to eat as much, so I can keep on working out and get all the carbs and other nutrients I need.
My working out routine has been fabulous. My running abilities keep improving and I am amazed to say that I can run 2 kilometers now, and it’s not even that hard anymore. Challenging, yes, but very doable. In fact, I keep increasing the speed on these two kilometers and I’m down to 14 minutes for them now. Yes, not about to compete in the Olympics, I do realize lol, but it’s a personal record for me.
I also got back the results of some blood tests. Everything looked brilliant, including sugar levels, cholesterol and every other parameter they checked for, which was a bunch. The only thing that came up was some iron deficiency and my physician prescribed some gentle iron tablets for that one. He agreed that my good results are very likely to be a result of the intensive exercise regime and encouraged me to continue. He also looked into my ear, reaffirmed that the ear infection was gone and gave me the all clear to go back swimming, with ear plugs this time.
tags: General, Gym Exercise, Nutrition author: FitnessNotesMom comments: No Comments
August 31st, 2007
Let’s face it, with summer vacation, kids at home and the heat, updating daily is more than I can do It’s been a good week, plenty of workouts, although no major weight loss. I lost one pound, I think. It’s hard to tell really, when drinking two glasses of water can tip the scale. I am actually thinking about switching from weekly to monthly weigh-ins - might prove to be less frustrating.
The good news is that I am getting much much more fit! I switched to running, or rather mixing running and walking, and I can really see the progress from one workout to another. I manage to run over one mile on the treadmill, which is more than I was able to do at any other point in my life. What’s more, I do it at a higher speed every time! Running at the same speed I did two weeks ago, my hearbeat rate is lower by almost 10! I can feel my body adjusting to this and it feels great!
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August 25th, 2007
This has been a bit of a weird week, hence why I didn’t post on time. We went on a mini-vacation here, hubby and me. I was real good during that, probably too good even! I think I may have gone on a low-carbs diet that was too low-carbs for my needs. By Tuesday I was feeling weak and had a constant headache that didn’t go away no matter how many painkillers I’d take.
I did some more reading and figured out I was going too low on carbs and too high on protein. No more of that. I am back to a more balanced diet now. My workout routine did not suffer too much. I had to take Tuesday off training, and Wednesday I only had a low-intensity workout (an hour of walking, not too fast). Back on Thursday with a 90 minutes workout, including full weights routine, running for 12 minutes (a whole mile! a first for me!) and more cardio on the treadmill. This morning I went outside and mixed running and fast walking in 8 minutes intervals for half an hour. Not a lot, but I hope to have another walk in the evening.
Food for today -
A slice of low-cal whole wheat bread and half a tablespoon of honey before the workout.
After the workout, half a cup of branflakes and one serving of yogurt.
One green apple as a mid-morning snack.
One slice of low-cal bread with low-fat hummus spread two hours later.
A bowl of a nice dish I made from zucchini and celery (stalks and leaves) + two spoons of whole rice.
That’s it for now, looking at it now, I probably need to squeeze in some more protein and carbs today.
tags: General, Gym Exercise, Nutrition author: FitnessNotesMom comments: No Comments
August 17th, 2007
A good day as far as working out is concerned. I decided to take my kid with me for a morning workout, since there’s no school. He’s 3.5 and obviously can’t follow me to the gym, so we opted for a morning walk with the stroller. It lasted for almost an hour and we found out that he really enjoys sprints! What’s more, even just walking, that stroller really adds resistance, so my overall heart rate was higher through out the workout. Ended up with a 55 minutes long workout on an average bpm of 145! I also ran quite a bit during it too.
Food was ok too. Let’s see… coffee and a slice of low-cal bread (which happens to be protein rich too btw) before the workout. Then when I got back, a brunch of eggs and cheese and a cucumber, along with two low-fat organic whole-wheat crackers. The next meal was a late lunch, 3-4 hours later of cheese pie (no pastry) and a big salad. Next was dinner with broccoli and another one of those soy substitutes. I stayed up late so had a night snack of yogurt and 1/3 cup of no-sugar branflakes.
I probably won’t be able to report anything more over the next few days, as I’m going away on a mini-vacation with my husband. I will try to be good and report back when we return
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August 12th, 2007
A bit belated, but better late than never!
Let’s begin with the confession - I did not exercise on this day. Been meaning to, but unless you count housework as exercise, I had zero time.
For breakfast I had a slice of low-cal bread and some low-fat cheese. Then later in the morning, one medium-sized green apple. For lunch, it was steamed green beans and one piece of what is known here as “soy schnitzel” - a soy based, veggie patte. One slice of low-cal bread in the afternoon and then we had guests over for dinner. I am really proud of that one - we served sliced watermelon and I didn’t touch it even. Then for dinner we had more steamed green beans, whole-wheat spaghetti (I had about 2/3 of a cup) and a sauce/dish that I made, with no sugar or any additives, just onions, mashed tomatoes, seasoning and chunks of soy substitute that is supposed to be a meat-replacement.
By the way, I am not a vegetarian myself, but my husband is, so I usually don’t cook meat, chicken or fish around the house.
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August 11th, 2007
Decided to get more specific and document my diet, at least for a few days.
Breakfast: half a serving of branflakes (no sugar) + 1/3 cup of milk
morning break: one slice of “diabetic bread” - 42 calories, 4.5 grams of carbs and 3 grams of protein
lunch: fish fillet (unfortunately fried - I was eating with my in-laws), salad and some cheese (no carbs, but they only had white rice for carbs and I’m staying away from processed carbs).
afternoon: one green apple (medium)
dinner: half a cup of whole couscous, coleslaw (no mayo), small can of tuna in water, steamed vegetables.
I went to the gym - 80 minutes workout, average hb of 118, 20 minutes of weights
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August 9th, 2007
Well, so much for my swimming practice… It’s been a while since I posted and during that time I did zero swimming. Funny, my one before last swimming practice was excellent, I swam just over a kilometer at once, for the first time in my life.
Then, one practice later, I get back home and a couple of hours later I’m hit with this sharp pain in my right ear. Apparently, an ear infection has developed in that ear, and it is probably related to the swimming. The ear doctor recommended at least two weeks out of the water, as well as antibiotics. Since there was also an ear wax blockage there, he had to clean the ear first (vacuuming the wax). A week later we had to repeat the ear cleaning due to secretions from the infection, and continue with the antibiotics for another five days.
It’s two weeks later now and I wonder if I can get into the water and what precautions need to be taken. I would hate for this to repeat itself. Not looking forward to creating chronic ear infections… I did visit the doctor yesterday and he gave the all clear on the ear, in terms of no more infection. There is still some pain and sensitivity though.
I am not sure if the infection I had qualifies as swimmer’s ear or not. From what I’ve been reading, classic Swimmer’s Ear involves the external ear more than anything. With me, there was little pain in the outer ear, and the infection was more on the inside.
I am pretty sure the infection is related to this ear of mine being somehow malformed internally. It has recurrent ear wax buildup as it is, which indicates some problem with the ear’s drainage system. I guess this can effect the drainage of pool water as well.
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August 1st, 2007
I had a swimming workout at the pool on Saturday, then a workout on Sunday at the gym (treadmill/bike and machine training), today it was the pool again. Tomorrow, our schedule calls for another intensive 1-2 hours at the gym… My muscles hurt at this point, especially the arms and legs (ok, tummy too, which doesn’t leave much else, does it?). I wonder if I should press ahead with another heavy training session tomorrow, or maybe it’s time for a rest.
Doing some reading about it. I see that the recommended rest time between intensive workouts is 2-6 days according to one resource. Another article indicates that professional body builders train each muscle only once every 7-9 days! They did mention that these pros have very heavy sessions. They think an amateur would do well with working each muscle twice a week.
Then again, I also found an article about a research that showed better results with training the same muscle twice a day! However, reading further down the article, they also suggest resting that muscle for 3-7 days following that double workout, so I guess we’re still talking about long rest periods per muscle.
Now, I am not sure if swimming is considered training a muscle or not. We currently have 3 workouts at the gym, with swimming on everyday that we’re not on the gym. The more I am reading, the more I think I’ll stick to brisk walking as tomorrow’s training session!
tags: General, Gym Exercise, Swimming author: FitnessNotesMom comments: No Comments
June 18th, 2007
