So, this happened

 Meet Harlee.  Yes, its spelled different than in that Snapchat.  We decided to change the spelling.  Anyway, she's a Golden Retriever and our 4th dog.  Don't ask LOL  Long story on how and why we got a 4th dog.  Here's a couple other pics.

Here she is with my boxer Phoenix

And one with our oldest granddaughter, Charli.  They are friends.  Charli loves to run around the house and have Harlee chase her around.  I think they will become good friends as they both grow up.

But she's a lot of work.   Housebreaking a puppy is hard work.  And yes, I've gone through quite a bit of enzyme cleaner on the floor, and I've stream cleaned it extra as well.  UGH.  Thank goodness its mostly been above normal temps to go out and watch her in the dog pen.

Anyway, my fitness journey took a detour.  I got my Covid booster, finally, and it did throw me for a loop.  Felt tired, feverish, and had swollen lymph glands in the armpit and breast of the side I got my shot in.  Totally  derailed my fitness train.  So I've got to get back on my fitness track again.

And I got these to help. 

Nike SuperRep spin shoes.  I need to get back to using that Peloton bike on a fairly regular basis.  Its a great form of cardio, that I actually enjoy.  I'm not a big cardio lover, if given a choice, I'll lift weights.  But I've not even been doing that all that much the last couple weeks so I need to look back to my  Word of the Year, consistency, and get back to being consistent with my workouts again

Now that Harlee is more settled into our routine, and finally I think starting to understand the housebreaking, it should be easier.   I hope 

Making a Fitness Smash book

 What's a smash book you ask. Well, its kind of half journal, half scrapbook, half planner/motivational book.  Its kind of what you make of it really.

I've got this. 

Its from Happy Planner. A notebook I'm getting set up to be my smashbook.  Here's a sneak peak at things I'm putting in my book

First my word of the year.

Consistency.  I want to be consistent in my workouts, healthy eating being active. 

My next section is kind of a  motivational section.

It has things like this.

Every week or two I'm going to print out more motivational things, before and after pictures of women etc.

The next section is my before and soon, during and later on after pictures.  No, you can't see them quite yet.  I hate the way the look, but here I am 

Yes I have funky hair right now lol.  Life is to short for boring hair and I wanted something different for a while.  The shirt, the saying is from WandaVision.  HUGE Marvel fan here and that show was amazing

The next section is my goals. I have short term goals

Middle goals,  What do you call it Mid term? Sounds like I'm in school and its mid-term test time LOL

And finally my long term goals

Each goal has its own page and plenty of other pages I can add as I hit these goals and need to have new ones. 

So I'm as ready as I can be, I guess, to get this grandma bod into Glamma Shape

TTOM makes things so much harder

 Yep, Aunt Flo decided to visit me, a week early. 😠   Now I'm 51.  I've been in perimenopause for a few years now and I'm 110% OVER THIS.   I just want this crap to be over.  Why can't I just get this over with?     UGH.  It just makes things harder for these few days.  I mean, it sucks the energy out of me for a couple days.  I mean I have zero energy.  None.  Makes it so much harder to get up get down to my home gym and lift weights.

But I did manage to get down there. Day 1 all I could manage is a 20 min walk on the treadmill.  That was literally it.  

I finally got a lifting workout in yesterday.  Chest, shoulders and triceps.   Here's my shirt of the day

And the shirt is 100% right.  I really don't care what the scale says.  I want to be strong and healthy.  Ok I do want to be a smaller pant size cause where I'm at now isn't healthy.  But I don't have an actual number on the scale I want to see.  I just want to be healthy and fit and active.  I want to chase my grandkids in the yard and not get as tired.  

I've been tracking my macros the last few days.  I'm eating a range of calories.  Between 1800-2300 a day.   Yes, 2300 calories a day.  It takes calories to build muscle and that's my primary goal.  And I've been slowly losing weight, and inches, when I track at least 3-4 days a week.  So it can be done, losing weight while eating over 1200 calories a day.

But no tracking today lol.  Wed are a cheat day for me. I mean my show My 600lb Life is on, and I usually pop up some popcorn, and sit and watch those people.  There are ones I cheer for and hope they lean into Dr Now's program and lose weight, and then there are the train wrecks who I just sit and watch,  kind of stunned, at their lack of progress and behaviors. 

Well, I should get up off my rear and go do laundry.  I need to get a few things folded and then put another load in.  However Friday the 13th part 4 is on, and I have to watch it first lol

Before pictures are hard to take

 So I took my before pictures.  OMG that SUCKED!!!!!😨  Big time.  No, you don't get to see them yet cause I'm still uncomfortable with them right now. Maybe after I lose a little I'll share them, but not quite yet ok.

Here's a pic of me with a new tank I got.  

Yep a WandaVision tank,  I loved that show. 

Its been a little of a rough week. Yesterday my tummy kind of started hurting towards the end of the afternoon, and it felt off even by bedtime it felt off. So I didn't workout yesterday.  I mean it was the "Am I gonna puke" kind of off.   I'm feeling better today, so I hope to get some kind of workout in.

Maybe hit my Peloton cause well, its been a while, and I really need to get on the thing and use it,

I have been using the treadmill so at least there is that.

Not much else to say.  I'm sick of winter already, I'm 110% ready for spring and I want to be able to take the grandkids outside and play.  They nap better, they just are better when they can go out and get fresh air, burn off energy, and quite frankly, I feel better being outside and getting fresh air too.  This below zero crap, Antarctica can keep it.

Gym vacuumed, mopped, Peloton updated, lets do this!

 So after a couple hiccups, where I have not been been getting down to my home gym except for 2 times in 2 weeks, I have decided to restart.  After I clean up my gym cause my cats think its a great place to both have cat kerfuffles, and leave fur EVERYWHERE, and then leave hairballs on the floor.  UGH. 

I'm going to be going from the 3 day a week plan to the 4 day a week plan of the Year One Challenge for Women.  I like the fact that the 4 day a week has the extra booty/leg work in it. Cause well, my 51 year old butt needs HELP.    I've always had a flatter butt, except when I was Crossfitting 3-4 times a week.  I actually build a slightly rounded butt.

But now, its flatter again, and starting to head south like a retired couple going to Florida for the winter. LOL

And I'm going to be wearing these shoes quite frequently while I lift weights.

My Reebok Nano X Wonder Woman shoes.  I finally managed to get my hands on a pair in my size, I've only been in love with Wonder Woman since the 1970s show and when these came out late 2020 for the Wonder Woman 1984 movie I tried to get a pair.  But my size sold out.  But my shoe obcessed ass kept looking for them and I finally got them!

I also got these.

Brooks Ghosts which I've owned a couple other pair I wore a lot for work.  I will be also doing more walking, both on my treadmill during crappy weather, and outside when spring finally decides to get here.  Which is soon I hope cause I miss going outside to play with my granddaughter, and this year, I'll get to take them BOTH outside  Not that the little one will do much, but I'm sure the fresh air and seeing our horses will be a good thing for her.

I got my first 8 weeks of sheets printed out for Phase 1. Looking forward to it. Now tomorrow, sadly, I'm hopping on the scale, which will freak me out I'm sure.  A little to much snacking on crap this snowy cold weekend, and to little movement.  And then the tape measure comes out.  But I have to know where I'm starting so that at the end of phase 1, I can see how I did.

I'm also getting My Fitness Pal updated on my phone, so I can start tracking my macros. For now, I'm going to only track 3-4 days a week.  Break it in slowly, and work up to tracking every day. 

And I also updated my Peloton bike.  I'm planning on getting on that thing 1-2 days a week cause cardio is important to my cardiovascular health.  And spinning is one of the few cardio workouts I actually mostly enjoy lol.

Got my Wonder Woman fitness planner set up to track workouts, sleep, steps, etc, and I'm making a fitness smash book that I will show, once I get more in it 

So here's to getting my grandma body fit and healthy. 

Well, things changed

 So my last blog, I had started STS.  I completed week 1, feeling good.

Then my mother in law passed away.  So, things got weird, real quick for quite some time.

Hubby and his brother went to Texas, where my in laws wintered, to help father in law out and bring him back for the funeral.  Then he went back to Texas cause he had some medical procedures he wanted to keep cause if he stayed in Iowa, he'd have to start all over again to get it done. 

He's home now. Doing as good as can be expected after losing his wife of 63 year.  I say 63 years cause they were days away from their 63rd anniversary, and that's close enough for me to say 63 years.

So my workouts have been a little hit and miss for a couple months.  But I'm ready to get back to it.

In the last few weeks I've really been thinking of what goals I want to hit. And the biggest goal I want right now, is to get much stronger.  So I'm going to go back to weight lifting 3 days a week to start with, then I might bump it up as I get my workouts back on track.

I am going to follow this program, for at least 8-12 weeks

 

I've done the first stage before and I enjoyed it.  After I get done with stage one, I'll see if I want to continue, or move onto another program.  I'd love to be able to say "I did the whole year" but my workout ADD just won't let me.  So instead I'm going to just say I'm going to do the first stage, then make up my mind.  I hope I can at least do 2-3 stages cause each stage is different.   And you can pick lifting 5 days a week, 4 days a week or 3 days a week with this program.  Right now, I'm going to do 3 days a week and get a little cardio in 1-2 days a week.   Then I hope by stage 2 to move to the 4 day a week and keep the cardio 1-2 days a week.

Another goal is to get my workouts back to 4-6 days a week.  I use to workout 4-6 days a week all the time.  I was in good shape. And better yet, I felt great.  Had energy to spare. Now I'm dragging around, not sleeping well.  So its time to get that back.  These first couple weeks will be a bitch I'm sure.  I'll be sore, cranky, tired and struggling with cleaning up my eating too. This last couple weeks has just been eating to much, to much junk, and nothing that healthy.

So this week, I'm cleaning my fridge, tossing old food, stocking up on fruit, veggies, and getting them back in my diet.   In fact, here in a little bit, I'm going to make a smoothie, my mango/veggie smoothie cause I need to start today!

And I'm going to get started on making YouTube videos on my progress too.  So I'm going to be a busy woman.  But I want the energy to chase my granddaughters around when spring/summer comes around, so if I start now, by warm weather, I'll be a much healthier fitter grandma, right?

STS Disk 1 AKA 1 Billion pushups

 So yesterday evening, I did my first STS workout.  STS disk 1  Chest Shoulders and Biceps.    

After a short warmup, we literally just go right into 3 sets of pushups.  And not regular pushups but ones like 1 full rep 1 half rep, and that's 1. 😮  And there are more after that.   I just simply couldn't  manage to do them all.   So I did what I could and modified until I couldn't anymore.

Me, before the workout LOL

And its amazing how moving more and trying to watch what I eat makes the scale go down.  As of this morning, I'm down 5.4lbs so I'm pretty happy.   Don't any fat acceptance people come on my blog cause I'm NOT accepting myself as fat.  I need to lose fat for my health.  Its not healthy for me.  My feet are more tired at the end of the day.  My cholesterol is hovering right around that "to high" level.  And my fat is focused around my belly which they say is the worst place to be.  So goodbye fat!

Back to counting calories,  Right now I'm using My Fitness Pal, but trying out Chronometer.  The only bad thing, I have all my recipes in MFP and I'm not sure I want to do that in Chronometer lol.  Maybe over the next couple weeks I'll get more of my recipes entered into Chromometer cause a friend of mine used it and really likes it.

Today, keep my step count up, get my hair and nails done, and get a light workouts in.  And run around after a 2 year old LOL