Making the Cut: Day 17

Seventeen days into Making the Cut and I'm finally noticing a big difference. Muscles in places I've never had them before (because I am admittedly a wimpy workout person, so I have never worked all that hard, LOL). But after two-plus weeks doing the exercises faithfully, my abs are tighter, my shoulders are rounding nicely, and my calves are getting really defined.



My weight loss stalled for a few days, and all because of a wedding, LOL. We had to drive three hours each way to a family wedding, and I was doing really great on the ride up. Made great choices at the buffet. Then they brought out the cake and OMG, it was CHOCOLATE. Resistance was futile, but I did stop at one huge piece. It was SO yummy, and totally worth it, though.



I figured I could stop with that cheat, then we stopped at Wendy's on the drive home, and though I didn't order anything, the drive-thru people screwed up and threw in an extra kids' meal. Those fries were too tempting to miss, and the chicken nuggets were just begging to be eaten.



Okay, I thought, one day isn't bad. I'll do better tomorrow, right? Well, Sunday was the Mad Ants basketball game, and when my son brought back nachos with cheese sauce...it was all over. I ate more than half of them, then half a pretzel. Then we went to Ruby Tuesday's and I ordered an appetizer I didn't need. All totaled, I had double the calories I needed on both those days. I've stuck to the plan ever since then, but it took about four or five days to get back to losing weight again.



The workouts aren't getting any easier (not that I expected them to, LOL), but I am doing all the circuits twice each time, and the extra 15 minutes of cardio afterwards. I've started cooking a few of my own meals, because there's only so many recipes in that book ;-).

My biggest problem now is jeans. I'm down a full size but CAN NOT find one pair in this city in the size I need. I'm speaking in Columbus, OH, on the 13th (if you're interested, info on my writing presentation on the "Rule of Six" is on their website) and am hoping I can find some in the mall there. If not, I'll have to order them (a huge pain, because jeans are so hard to get right and I end up trying on a dozen pairs at a time). But y'all know me--shopping isn't exactly a hardship, LOL.

The key for me has been total diligence about tracking my calories and exercise. I use Fat Secret, which is a free program for my Blackberry (get it through Blackberry App World, which should be installed on your BB, if you have one. If not, they make an app for other kinds of phones too; check the website). I love that I can look at the past days and see calorie expenditure versus calorie intake. That helps me fine-tune the number of calories I need to keep losing weight (I found I need about 100 calories less than Jillian recommends or my weight just stays the same). It has a great exercise calculator, and the food diary is filled with store, restaurant and brand name products so that most everything I eat is easy enough to find in there.



I do miss my cooking sprees, and I bet readers do, too, LOL. But in doing this, I've found a lot of creative ways to eat healthier and lower calorie, so I'm sure that'll affect future recipes. Unless someone puts a piece of cake in front of me ;-)

Shirley