Update

So, I haven't blogged in 2 months. Yikes. I've been busy. Graham has been down in Portland during the week, completing his engineering labs, so I'm a semi-single mom. Pretty much every day, I wake up early, get ready, drop Carter off at daycare, work, pick Carter up, throw something in the oven, put Carter to bed, exercise, and then it's bed time. Free time is minimal and usually I use it to take a bath after a hard work out.

As far as life goes, I cannot wait for the summer to end and for life to go back to normal. I love Graham too much for him to be away this much. Plus, Carter misses him and asks for Daddy all of the time. Work is work..

Vegetarianism has gone out of the window. Although I believe fairly strongly about its principles without getting all self-righteous about it, I just can't do it long-term. I love cooking too much, and not being able to cook beef, chicken or pork made me sad. I have a full shelf of cookbooks that I felt like were going to waste. I love trying new recipes and trying new vegetarian recipes wasn't cutting it. I still plan on eating meat more sparingly and making a vegetarian meal at least 1-2 times per week. I also bought some organic ground beef at Costco that I liked.

Fitness-wise.. I am doing great. I am almost 6 months in and still loving it. I have not missed a planned workout once. I even brought my workout videos on vacation (which my family joined me in, which was a lot of fun). Thanks to my friend Sherilyn who let me borrow her videos, I have moved on to Turbo Fire, which is the Insanity version of Turbo Jam. It is very high intensity, so it requires a lot of energy on my part. I am absolutely drenched with sweat even after a 15-minute workout. It combines high-intensity cardio with high-intensity interval training (HIIT), as well as yoga, stretching, and resistance band training. The HIIT workouts are no joke. I've never jumped this much in my life, including at cheer practice and tumbling lessons. I am in love with the music and look forward to my workout all day long.

Graham says I've become an annoying person who talks about working out a lot now, but that's ok. Both of my co-workers work out a lot, so it's something we all share now. I love feeling the endorphins after exercise and feeling sore after a new workout. I am beginning to like what I see in the mirror. From June 1st-August 1st doing Turbo Jam and Bar Method, I only lost 2 pounds (out of a total of 10) but I lost more than 10 inches. Man do I wish I measured myself in March when I started! Anyways, since I started Turbo Fire July 30th, I've lost 2.5 pounds and 4 inches, including a full inch off my waist in only 2 weeks! I found my measurements from October 2008, and I'm actually smaller than I was then in my arms and waist! My goal is to get down to my waist measurement from my senior year of high school--only 4.5 more inches to go.. If I keep going at this rate, I should be there by October, when we take our family photos for Carter's 2nd birthday! I've lost almost 12 pounds so far, and it's dropping more rapidly with the new workout.

Anyways, hope you all are doing well and enjoying your summers. It's been in the high 70's and 80's, which is unbearable up here. Thank goodness I live in the Pacific Northwest because I am now heat-intolerant.