It's Been Awhile ...

I've been off the grid the past 3 weeks. Lots of life events that had to take priority over my wonderful blog.

I got injured, then my boyfriend got injured and then my dog got injured. The dog is still being nursed back to health. She hurt her back last week and we've been treading lightly ever since. I'm hoping that she's getting better but I can't honestly tell. We have a follow up visit to the vet on Friday and I'm hoping for good news.

On the health and wellness front, life still continues on. I was debating trying to make a "catch-up" blog post about the last 3 weeks but decided against it because honestly, nothing has really changed.

On the weighing in front, I am up +.6 lbs from my last post. It's been up and down since I last posted with nothing major in either direction. So basically I have been maintaining.

And since I haven't really seen any gains in my weight loss last week I started incorporating a few things.

First, I'm tracking actual calories again.

I happened across the blog of a woman who was doing South Beach and saw good strides in the beginning (Phase 1) but who did nothing but maintain while following Phase 2 - so she started tracking calories in addition to applying the Phase 2 rules and for her she needed that discipline to get the scale moving. I mean, tracking calories has worked for me in the past very well so I'm going to start trying to keep my calories in the 1400-1500 range.

Second, I've gone back to the gym. Who was I kidding? I have always done extremely well on an exercise heavy program and to leave it out of the equation just doesn't make sense. I'm on a 6 days of cardio/3 days of strength training schedule right now. I know that sounds like a lot but that's pretty much par for the course for me. I'm aware that my body needs a consistent workout schedule in order for change to occur. And more importantly, I feel much better when I am on a moderately heavy workout schedule - I think for me it's a great stress reliever.

Today looks like this

AM: strength training / 30m

B: whey protein, milk, org. raspberry shake with flax seed oil
S: breakfast casserole (eggs, egg whites, red pepper, mushroom, sweet potato, cheese)
L: Roasted chicken, green beans, twice baked sweet potato

PM: cardio / 30m

S: 1.25 c. chicken and vegetable soup (homemade)
D: ??

Also, I'm going to start tracking my body fat %. I bought calipers and am now practicing with them. I find that right now I'm extremely inconsistent with my readings so I'm going to keep practicing until I get the hang of it. No need to track measurements when I'm not very good at it. I've read that it takes quite some time before you start getting consistent readings so that's what I do in the morning. I stand in my bathroom and practice w/ my calipers :)

I'm thinking in another week I should get the hang of it and when I do I'll start tracking that too.