CTF Challenge 7w0d

Today was supposed to be my rest day, but because of a party yesterday, yesterday was my rest day. So, I did the cardio today that I was supposed to do yesterday: R24 to the video. Wow, I really didn't write good notes on this one. I see, after having done it to the video that my notes of even my favorite section, kicks, was wrong. Ah, well. I can correct it next week. I really think this round rocks and I am not sure why NONE of it appeared on BOV4?!?

So, I am not sure how I will get my workout on this week. We had a death in the family this week and I will be supporting my mom as she burries her mother. The next few days will be very tough to stay on program. I will absolutey do everything I can to eat my six meals, eat appropriate carbs and drink a ton of water.

Betsey

CTF Challenge 6w6d

Wow, a whole week, no post.

Here's my weigh/measure result for his week.

weight: 225.8 (+.2)
bodyfat% 28.8 (same, but caliper pinch was -1mm to 18mm)
waist: 39.2 (-.25)
chest: 48 (no change)
neck: 13.5 (-.5)
arms: 25 (no change)
calves: 32 (-1.25)
thighs: 44 (-.75)

I had some serious water issues this week. My unofficial weigh in on Friday was actually 229.6, and because it was hot, I decided to really push the fluids yesterday and that seemed to help with the water retention, as I dropped 4 lbs in a day. Now if I could just lose some scale weight. I was so hoping to be down to 212 by the end of the challenge, which now is only five weeks away!

On a phone call with Jeff Anderson, the creator of Combat the Fat, I found out that we could switch up the exercise a bit to encourage fat loss without muscle gain. I am all for that!! My body is currently 161 lbs of lean mass, up from 148 before the challenge. I don't think I need to gain more muscle at this point. I would like to see the scale go down without losing the muscle gain.

The suggestion was to change the strength pyramids to circuits, so that it's a switch off between circuits and cardio six days a week. Works for me! I will give it a try! As for diet, Jeff also suggested having a cheat day instead of a cheat meal to fool the metabolism. I think I will try the circuit switch next week and see what that does for me for a week or two.

Or maybe do circuits on day 1 & 5, do full body pyramids on day 3, with a rep count starting at 1-1-2-2-3-3. Hmmm, I still think I will try one week without pyramids to see how that goes. I do not want to lose muscle weight though. I am 3mm away from my goal and I don't want to backslide that.

B

CTF Challenge 5w6d

Today is cardio only day and I want to do HHH in the AM and maybe TK in the early evening.

Today is also measure day.

weight: 225.6 (-1.6)
bf: 28.8% (-1.4)
neck: 14.2 (no change
chest: 48.2 (-.5)
waist: 39.2 (+.2)
arms: 25 (no change)
thighs: 44.7 (+.5)
calves: 33.2 (+.2)

Betsey

CTF Challenge 5w4d

Today was cardio only. R27 was sweaty fun. It is definitely one of my favorite rounds. I guess R33 is coming out soon. I hope it's fun!!

I weighed in at 225.6 today & measured 19mm on the calipers. That means I have lost 8 lbs on the scale, 21 lbs of body fat & gained 14 lbs of muscle. Very cool.

Today was my cheat meal since I forgot yesterday. Chris & I went out to Buckhorn Grill. Yummy. I had a Big Buck 6 oz tri tip sandwich with au jus & fried onions.

Betsey

CTF Challenge 5w3d

Did Hip Hop Hustle with my circuits today. The place I usually do my chin ups & pull ups wasn't available today, so doing those exercises in the circuit was challenging. My heart just wasn't in it today.

I was supposed to do my cheat lunch today, but forgot and brought some on plan food. Will do it tomorrow.

Weight check: 226.4. Down from yesterday. Let's see what tomorrow holds.

B

CTF Challenge 5w2d

Ok. I ate well yesterday. I did my colon therapy. I exercised. I drank my water. I gained a lb. What's up with that? I am in a serious plateau on the scale. It's really starting to bug me to work this hard and not see results. I don't know what I am doing wrong.

Even my bodybugg is crapping out on me these days. I put in a battery & it dies within a few days. It used to last at least a week in there! Now, I have all these time periods without data. It really sucks not to know what I am really burning.

This is what I have/will eat today:

6:30 8 oz milk, apex mocha protein cookie
9:45 orange, cytosport protein shake (180 cals) with 1 tbsp psilium
12:50 2 cups mixture of spinach, mushroom, tomato chunks & ground turkey on whole wheat bread (sloppy joe) post exercise english toffee,no chocolate treat
3:30 orange, cytosport protein drink with 1tbsp psilium
7:00 4 oz salmon, 2 cups brocoli
9:00 Peanut Butter protein cookie (homemade) and 4 oz milk

It was a cardio day. R27 of TK. This will be my last week of R26 & R27. Can't say I will miss 26 much. I will miss 27, though. I love it! I have three faves now: 25, 27 & 32. Next week, I will do 24 & 28 as I have not really done them since I got them. That should be interesting! I did 50 minutes of cardio today.

Tomorrow is cirucuits with Hip Hop Hustle 2 mixed in. I need to remember to bring the DVD in since I don't know those by heart, nor do I have the coreo notes.

B

CTF Challenge 5w1d

Today was strength pyramids. I've stepped up to the next level on Beginner, now on 3. It was much harder than two. I might not be ready. Instead of an added exercise, it is an added step on the ladder. The "easy" exercise is done 15 times in the peak set. Wowza! It was tough. Supposed to do 15 mins of cardio, I knocked out 40. Wahoo.

Eating was great today. I had my usual breakfast (protein cookie & milk), am snack was protein shake and kiwi fruit, lunch was a rasberry chicken chipotle salad a Quiznos, PM snack also was my after workout meal (candy, protein shake & apple), dinner was turkey tomato mushroom mix up (which will be served on bread for lunch tomorrow) and desert was two homemade protein peanut butter cookies (Thanks for the recipe Sarah, if you are reading this!), 4 oz of milk and an apple. A workgroup sponsored lunch for my department. I went to the lunch, but did not eat the sandwich or even the cookies or brownies. Very proud of myself for passing up free social food...two big triggers for me. Well, three if you count the chocolate cookies & brownies!!

B

CTF Challenge 5w0d

I did cardio only yesterday. It was fun. I mixed it up with HHH2. Neve had done it before. It's well over an hour on the instruction video. Very fun, but tiring. I quit before it ended because I had already been at it over an hour. An hour of cardio is quite enough for me!

CTF Challenge 4w6d

Planning on doing R26 at some point today. I've got the kids by myself today and I have a big assignment due tomorrow. My MIL is taking the kids this afternoon to give me a chance to get it done. Tomorrow will be a big busy day with DH taking off to some photography and me taking the kids by myself to a kid's faire in San Francisco and a BBQ at a friend's house in South City. Fun and busy but not much of an opportunity to get schoolwork done.

So my measurements for this week are as follows.

weight: 227.2 (+.6)
body fat %: 30.2 (no change)
waist: 39 (-.8)
neck: 14.5 (no change)
chest: 47.75 (-.75)
arms: 25 (+.25)
thighs: 44.25 (+.25)
calves: 33 (-.25)

So, I broke my up and down pattern (weight down, BF% stable; next week weight up a hair and BF% down a lot). This week, my weight was up a hair and my BF% stayed stable. I think looking at the whys will help me jump over the hurdles next time.

Looking back at this week for the reasons why and where I didn't do what I was supposed to: I had two days away from the office. I didn't wing my regular meals, but on those days I did skip my snacks and did not have access to low sugar protein powder. I didn't have as much veggies either. No access to my psillium those days either.

I was horrible this week with water and psillium. I think I drank less than half a gallon of water this week and I didn't have my potassium bicarbonate for the last three days.

So, if I am looking for things to correct from here on out, I would include: make sure to have access to protein powder at home & work, drink my water with the added potassium bicarbonate and take my psilium everyday. I think I will try to concentrate on that.

B

CTF Challenge 4w5d

Today was Day 5 strength day. Instead of doing 15 mins of cardio, I was able to do about 40 minutes. Sweaty workout right before lunch.

Scale has been up all weak. Tomorrow is weigh/measure day. Should be interesting to see what it hold. I hope I am down some!

Betsey

CTF Challenge 4w4d

Today was LIIT straight up sweaty cardio. I did R26 from warm up through finale from 11:30 AM through 12:15 PM. It's gotten easier this week to do R26 & R27, so I think I will stick with those two through the end of next week. The plan is to go to Beginner Level 3 next week. Haven't decided what rounds I will work with after next week. So far, I've done R25, R26, R27, R32 & BOV4.

Tomorrow, it's strength day 5.

Hopefully, we will start the new buddy group for Beck's Diet Solution. It's cognitive therapy applied to eating.