Curse You, Chocolate!

I love Halloween. It's one of my favourite holidays. I loved it when I was little, and I love it now. And I LOVE seeing how much my girls love it, too. I loved watching them walk around in their little costumes I made for them, carrying their little buckets. Even though we only went around to a few houses, their buckets filled up quite quickly because there were several houses that were giving out FULL SIZED chocolate bars! At the end of the night, our girls came home with 10 large chocolate bars! Seriously!? I remember when I was a young trick or treater, and there would be that one house that would give out full-seized chocolate bars and you would go out of your way to make sure you made it to that house.

At the end of the night, I took all the big chocolate bars and stashed them away in the cupboard, separate from all the other halloween loot (which they still had a lot of). I don't know exactly why I did this. I should have just asked Tanner to take them an hide them somewhere in the house, so I couldn't find them, BECAUSE . . . .

. . . today I ate three of those chocolate bars. 

Please, excuse me while I hang my head in shame in a corner somewhere. Well, that's what I feel like doing. Actually, what I really feel like doing is drowning my sorrows in another chocolate bar, like somehow in some insane irrational way, that will make it all better.

But I won't. 

Instead, I am going to do the workout that Malorie planned for me to do. Even though I reeeeeeaaally don't feel like it. From what I've been told, when it comes to things like exercising, feeling like you don't want to do it usually means that it is even more important that you DO do it. 

So, I'm going to exercise, even though I don't want to.

TODAY'S WORKOUT:

Hit the Deck!

I've done this workout before and described it a bit in this blog post. 

All you need is a deck of cards! Spades are squats, Clubs are push-ups, Diamonds are sit-ups, and Hearts are burpees. Whatever the value on the card is how many reps you do of the exercise (and all face cards are 10 reps). So, if you flip over a 4 of clubs you do push-ups. If you flip the queen of hearts you do 10 burpees. Get it? It's a pretty intense workout, but it keeps you on your toes as you don't know what card you're going to flip next. By the time your done, you will have completed 85 reps of each exercise. If you keep the Jokers in the deck you can choose to do something extra. Last time I played this, I did 2 minutes of cardio. But I think I'll do a 30 second plank when I flip over a Joker.

Have fun!

New Hair!

In September, I reeeeeeaally wanted/needed a hair cut. I don't get hair cuts very often (like, once a year or even less than that), so when I do it's a big deal and I talk to Tanner about it first. I knew that this time I wanted to get my hair cut AND highlighted, which meant an expensive salon visit. Tanner told me to go for it, but only AFTER I lost my first 25lbs. Whaaa!? He is so cheeky. He could have just said yes, instead he made my yearly hair appointment into a reward. And I was excited and happy to wait and work to lose that first 25. 

At the beginning of October I was 5lbs away from the goal, so I phone my hair stylist and set up an appointment for the beginning of November, planning (and crossing my fingers) that I could keep my act together enough to reach my goal.

October 31st, I got a phone call from the salon reminding me of my appointment for the following day, and I had TOTALLY forgot about it!! I hadn't even weighed myself in a while and wasn't sure how close I was to being 225lbs. (October was an off month.) 

The morning of the appointment, I stepped onto the scale and saw that I was at 224.8lbs!

I did it! . . . without really knowing that I had, even. Ha!

And here is my new hair! I'm still getting used to being so blonde and surprise myself when I look in the mirror, but I love it :)

TODAY'S WORKOUT:

As many rounds as possible in 5 MINUTES:

- 10 push-ups

- 20 lat pull downs with resistance band (Demo video here)

Rest (sort of) for 2 minutes, BUT you have to complete 50 rope jumps in that 2 minutes.

Then as many rounds as possible in 5 MINUTES:

- 20 squats

- 20 back extensions

2 minute rest with 50 rope jumps

Then as many rounds as possible in 5 MINUTES:

- 10 burpees

- 10 seated toe tap downs (sorry, I couldn't find a good video of this one. One day I will be amazing enough to create my own demo videos.)

Finish off with 50 rope jumps!

This workout is fun and as intense as you make it depending on how fast you push yourself. And since it's all timed, you know your going to complete the workout in 20 minutes!

Have a great week everyone!!!