Time Well Spent

Not hunting leaves me time to reflect, time to catch up on chores etc.,  and time to hone my hunting skills.
Being sidelined from the hunt  because of weather, no hunting season or what ever gives me lots of opportunities to either get fat and lazy or improve my hunting and shooting skills.. I have chosen the later.

Last weekend I was at the NRA Whittington Center for the MidWest Region Workshop for the Friends of NRA. Saturday was taken up by presentations from  regional representatives aimed at making annual FNRA banquets more effective and raise more money. But Sunday I was lucky to be able to take a class from Don Busse of Martial Arms. This man is a master of his craft and approaches firearms and firearms safety in a very practical manner. He began first by telling us the proper name for everything. For instance the difference between a jam and a malfunction on any firearm is that a malfunction can be instantly fixed , but a jam probably requires taking your firearm apart and ends your shooting for the moment.

I loved getting instruction from this mild mannered, often  funny man. He gave me confidence in my ability to handle the  Ruger Mini 14 I was shooting, but never talked down to me or intimidated me. As he went over the 4 range rules and the procedures for the day I was really looking forward to learning everything he had to offer. I got three hours to absorb everything Don had to say about the art of Practical Rifle shooting.

Practical rifle shooting is different from hunting or target practice. It's purpose is completely defensive, to project you and yours from those who would do you harm. Don thoroughly explained the whys and hows of practical rifle shooting from the proper prone position to the number of shots to be fired. He covered who to shoot first when two gunmen are coming your way and how many times to shoot each aggressor. My knowledge of proper self defense with a gun grew ten fold. I never had any desire for this kind of range experience thinking it was just for the Rambo type men but to tell you the truth I had a whole lot of fun and now have more practical confidence in defensive shooting. It's something I hope I will never have to use but it is something I think every red blooded American  woman needs to know!

Thanks for reading this blog...
See you at the Range!!!!

Winter Weight Week 2

I have completed my second full week of my Look Good Naked class. I still hide from myself in the mirror but I am feeling a lot of positive changes

#1 My jeans are much easier to zip!
#2 My thighs are beginning to lose the cottage cheese texture!
#3 A lot of the tiny aches and pains of sore feet, leg cramps a back aches have disappeared.

#4 My husband gave me roses!

#5 All of my clothes are fitting looser
#6 I have lost a total of  5 POUNDS!
#7 I am not feeling my age - I think I am 29 again!!

#8 My husband gave me roses!

I highly recommend everyone RUN don't walk to your nearest gym and get them to hold a Look Good Naked Class.

Winter Weight Weigh-In

Today was the big day!. A weigh-in to see if all my hard work,  pain, sacrafice and skinny eating would pay off. I stopped weighing myself at home because the scale was stuck on the same number it was on the first day. When I got to the gym other ladies in the class were being weighed. Every single one lost at least three pounds all the way up to an amazing 10 pounds. I waited anxiously for my turn on the scale, then promptly at 5:30 AM the instructor told us to get on our equipment. I would have to wait until the end of class to get weighed. Holy Excercise! I want to know now !#*#%! 

But I burned through the road block and got into the days routine of leg work.

Forward Lunges, backward lunges, knee bends, knee extensions, high running steps, repeat, repeat repeat!


Finally after 45 minutes of working my legs to rubbery stubs it was time for the weigh in

Tada!  3 pounds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Twice as much as I had set for my goal  3xs more than I thought I had lost! 

Great motivation for the next nine weeks, this is actually working!


 


 

Winter Wight -One Week Down!

Just finished week one (nine more to go !*#!). Today was Cardio.

60 minutes of heart pounding, sweat producing activity. First we used elliptical, bicycles, treadmills and skipping. Move on to a round of jumping jacks, hill climbing, side crunches and high kicks and then just because the trainer did not see enough motivation, we did a ZILLION sit ups alternately with bicycling in the air crunches. All the while the he kept asking if we were sweating yet? OMG ! I did not know I had that much sweat in me!

Weigh in is Friday. I have stopped weighing myslef at home because the scale in my house has been stuck on the same number since I started. I think I'm going to have to replace it....it can't be true that I have not lost ANY weight, I had to have lost at least a pound of sweat today!

Winter Weight the next day

I unmercifully punished myself with 2 Look Good Naked sessions yesterday.

Here are the Good the Bad and  the Ugly results:

Good    I slept like a hibernating bear from 9:00pm until my man woke me up at 7:13 the first time I can ever remember not hearing the alarm. I actually in feel better and  I impressed myself with  living through  2 extremely strenuous workout sessions.
After all I am not 20 ...........or 30 .......................or even 40 anymore!

Bad  I slept so hard on the same shoulder all night long that today I have a kink in my shoulder that hurts!!!! Tomorrow's session should take care of that.

Ugly Still no weight loss! I'm not going to weigh my self anymore until the mandatory weigh-in on Friday.

Winter Weight Day 3 & 4

2 fierce workouts focused on the abs, shoulders arms.  Saturday then again Monday.Driving home Saturday after the session I could tell I was going to be in PAIN. Just raising my arms to the steering wheel took major effort. Sunday I did a little light house work and didn't have too much pain.
Sticking to the diet over the weekend was tough, I had such a craving for CARBS, PASTA, CHOCOLATE! And I've got this stuff all over the house.
But I kept busy cleaning house and then cleaning some more so I managed to resist breaking the diet.

Today as I headed to the gym I felt just a little pain, but after the warms ups I loosened up and felt good. We were guided by our awesome trainer, Jay,  through another 45 minutes of bicycle kicks, bends, weight lifting and a couple of yoga moves and I managed to find some more muscles to torture! I hit the wall a couple of time when doing the weights over my head but that was the worst. The stretches afterward were heaven!

Since today was my birthday, after the session,  I decided to go to work late and pampered myself with a long, hot, bubble bath and boy did my aching muscles like that. I'm going back for another session tonight to make up for one I have to miss later this week. God have mercy on me!!

Winter Weight

It's been colder than usual and we've had more snow than usual so I haven't been doing the walking I usually do to keep off weight.

Plus,  I have just been too !@#$ing lazy. That's the real truth. 

My local  fitness club "Any Time Fitness" advertised a "Look Good Naked" fitness class.This is an intense 10 week course with four one hour work outs a week. But the fact that when I bend over to tie my shoes has become a torturous squeezing session to my big gut .I needed to do something - QUICK! I'll record my progress here.

Day One -Up Early, Yep the class starts at 5:30 AM. Worked the legs!  And the behind ! Didn't think it was too bad until the day after when normal bending and walking caused me to groan like an old woman.

Day Two - Today( 01/08) Cardio! A full hour of torturous running, jogging, skipping, jumping jacks, step ups and mountain somethings. Actually at the end of the session I am not feeling as exhausted as I did after the first day. This is encouraging.

No weight loss yet - very disappointing. I have set a goal of losing 1.5 pounds this week so I still have 7 days to reach that goal or as Jay says "There will be consequences!"

I'm still walking and bending and groaning like an old woman!

The eating rules given out the first day are also torture - to the man in my life, me- not so much. No butter, no ice cream, no pasta, no red meat ( Yeah! venison is OK!) All the veggies I can eat , some fruit, lots of protein, whole grains, nothing enriched, no sugar -  Oh, I almost forgot....Drink Lots of Water.

It's all doable with some sacrifice, so why am I not losing the weight??????????????????