I asked our two winners of the EA Sports Active to guest post during our 30 Day Challenge. Please give a warm welcome and some comment love/support/encouragement to our first poster, Barb from A Jiggle of Fat Chicks Lose Weight. Her post is inspirational!
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Hi all – I’m Barb from A Jiggle of Fat
Chicks Lose Weight. (There used to be a bunch of us, and we envisioned that a group of fat chicks would be a “jiggle”, like a group of geese is a “gaggle”. The group apart, though, and so far I’m the only one who has returned.) I’m 37 and my family consists of my husband and three cats (one was his, two were mine – we’re a blended family 🙂 ).
I’ve been overweight since about second grade; went on my first “program” in fifth or sixth grade. Like many of you, I’ve been on and off diets and programs pretty much all of my life. I’m tired of it, and ready to make a permanent change now. I officially joined the Sisterhood in April, have lost 26.5 pounds since the beginning of the year; 16.5 of that since joining the Sisterhood. I have a long way to go, but my first goal of losing my “thesis” weight and getting back to my wedding weight is at least in sight.
One of my struggles in weight loss and healthier living has always been getting in exercise. I shredded with the Sisterhood back in April, and have continued with that about 3 times a week over the summer. My husband and I also bike in the spring, summer and fall, when it isn’t too hot/humid. But things fall apart in the heat of high summer and the dead of winter. I’m hoping that this EA Sports Active challenge will add another workout to my normal schedule to help keep me interested in exercise – and challenged.
When I first won the game, I felt a little guilty because I knew that I have a business trip during September (and now I have an interview in another state scheduled this week), so I knew I wouldn’t make all 30 days of the 30-day challenge. But as I thought about it, I realized that real life gets in the way for all of us – we all have distractions that are going to interfere with our routines, our ability to workout, our energy levels. No one here is doing this under “ideal” circumstances. The real trick is learning how to deal with those distractions without letting ourselves get off track. So, my resolution is that I will be doing this 30 day challege every day that I am able, and I don’t think any of us can ask for any more than that.
So…what about those first two days of the challenge?
I worked out a couple of days last week to try out EAS Active, and my legs were burningby the end of it! After that, I was a little worried about the 30-day challenge, so I whimped out and did the low-intensity workout on Day 1. Though I did turn on my Wii balance board to see how it changed the exercises. The inline skating was a bit easier with the balance board – I found the no-balance-board jumping harder than with-balance-board leg lifting. But the boxing was definitely more fun and challenging with the balance board. I’m finding the squats really hard because I have to get deeper than I normally would for the game to register each squat, but it’s good for me to push a little. I may have to get a higher resistance strap for some of the exercises, like the rows and bicep curls.
This morning I chose to do the medium-impact workout. Oof. I might just stay here for a while! My arms are a bit sore as I type this, and I think my legs are going to be feeling it when I go up and down stairs at the office. I was unsure that the ab workouts would do much, but I’m actually feeling those a little, too. I love that the workout changes day-to-day, so I got to do a little tennis today, and there was a bonus that there were no squats.
Tomorrow is supposed to be a rest day, but since I leave for Mississippi to interview tomorrow afternoon, and don’t return until Friday, I’m going to try and workout before my flight and then rest on Thursday. After reading Lisa’s post and Heather’s post, I really have no excuse not to workout Friday after I get home from my interview.
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