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A couple hours ago, TEAM Bluffton finished our last TEAM workout together at BREAKTHROUGH in Sheridan Park and drew closure to the 1st Battle of the Bulge. The team was a bit chatty but the tension of closing out the Battle was evident amongst us all. Trainer Jen was at the helm for the class and she left no stone unturned, no rock unclimbed as she really put us through an intense workout. I think that is one, of many, reasons why this TEAM has been so successful- becasue not only do we give it 100% effort, our trainers don't ever stop pushing us--- taking us to the limit, encouraging us to reach deep inside to give more. This morning, it was more that we gave, more sweat we poured and when it was all over we gathered around the scales with quite a "gallery" of folks peering in on us. We all were weighed and then Trainer Steve took measurments, poked and prodded to analyze the results. TEAM Bluffton lost a total of something like-- 185lbs!!!! Truly amazing and unbelievable that we could do that in 12 weeks! All of the trainers were there with us, wanting to see the final results of all of our hard work. I especially was glad to see Trainer Sherri there.... giving me high-fives when I got off of the scales. Our work was completed, the successes are evident.

While the "Battle" may be drawing to a close just over 24 hours from now, the battle itself will never be completed. The fight against being overweight will be nonstop due to many factors in the lifestyle's of the majority of people but those of us completing the 1st Battle of the Bulge have a "leg" up on it. We've fought through each of our own situations and have learned how to overcome them, how to change our habits, how to work with medical situations and more to get many of us, away from the category of "overweight" or "obese". It cannot stop, though, once we are complete after our TEAM workout tomorrow morning. It will be a full set of new habits, new outlooks, new changes that must become second nature, replacing many things that made up that group before.

Just finished a 45 minute cardio workout at BREAKTHROUGH in Bluffton-- I wish I could have stayed a little while longer, but work persists that I keep working! Gee-whiz! Well-- I did 1.5 miles on the treadmill at a speed of 4.3 and an incline of 12%. It went alot faster than I figured, for some reason, but I ended up burning 394 calories. Over to the stairmaster I went... level 4, manual mode for 12 minutes. I pushed it up a couple of times to level 5 and brought it back down to 4 but burned 150 calories there as well. So, in less than a full hour of sweat, I burned 544 calories!! I thought that was pretty darned decent so I decided to have a "Berry Banana" smoothie. That hit the spot!

Just finished my Tuesday workout with Trainer Sherri... it was a "doozie" but an absolute great one at that. This is our final full week in the Battle and I'm not about to ease off now. Thankfully, Trainer Sherri wouldn't have it any other way, either. Today was a lower body workout and I exploded on the leg press, pressing an all-time high (for me) of 410lbs. It felt real good... yes, it was heavy, but I really felt I could've had 40-50 more on there. I hit 410lbs on my 3rd rep so I knew my thighs were going to be toast after that and I better not push it. So... we'll leave at 410, for now at least.

The 40lb mark didn't stay around long... as first thing Saturday morning at our TEAM workout, Trainer Dave escorted me to the scales and wanted to take an "official" weight for the week. Well... I'm glad to say that even before the workout started I have now lost a little over 42lbs! I didn't weigh myself after the workout but after Jen put us through her version of the infamous "Easter Egg Hunt", I certainly didn't gain any!! I got off to a late start as I was inside getting weighed in but tried to rally myself. I did find the coveted "sparkeled egg" which led to a prize of one of the most awesome tasting smoothies I have ever had. BREAKTRHOUGH makes these fresh... right there on the spot and it was pretty darn good. I'm sure Jen was laughing to herself "inside" as we went over towards the front desk to make it... "it doesn't have any sugar in it does it", I asked. I'm sure I sounded a little funny. Hollis also got a smoothie as he hauled in a record 7 or 8 eggs himself becoming the easter egg hunt king!

That's right... 40lbs so far. I had a workout with Trainer Sherri yesterday and stayed after "class" just a little while longer to get in extra reps from my workout. I completely exhausted my chest and arms. I felt really good though, even whipping out some crunches, not with ease, but they even felt good with a slight "burn". I am extremely pleased with the progress I've made.
As far as the workout itself, yesterday was an upper body day and there was a plethura of weights and exercises but Sherri added a few new ones that found some muscles "lacking" in their development. Really, and I mean really not liking that, I have attacked those and am going to catch them up with everything else quickly!! ha ha. Cardio is going fantastic, I've switched from bicycle weeks ago to treadmill and stair climber. I really notice a change in walking. At MATRIX, I use the 3.9 speed with the full % of incline so its gets the blood pumping pretty quick.

Unfortunately I was out of town this past weekend so I wasn't able be with my TEAM mates-- I heard today while working out with Trainer Sherri (Smith.... someone wanted to know that)that it was a pretty good day! While away, the only exercise I got in was a load of walking. The hotel had an awesome fitness center.... too bad my day started at 5ish in the morning and didn't end until 12am or after. (Yes, that's working hours) I didn't really know it, or at least I hadn't admitted it yet, but today I really felt how tired I really was. Sherri put me through the "ringer". It was an amazing lower body workout. Thank goodness I have put on a decent amount of muscle in my thighs and calf areas or I probably wouldn't be walking. As a matter of fact... if I had done this type of workout 10, even 8 weeks ago I probably wouldn't have made it. My-- what progress!, and I even find myself asking for "just one more".

Today Trainer Sherri and I met at MATRIX for another workout session.... someone asked me if these were becoming monotonous (sp)-- uh, NO! Not hardly! Not only is it motivationg enough to see your body change, your health improve etc, but how could it be monotonous (sp)? I wondered and walked away....
Well today was certainly not "hum-drum". I had given my legs a pretty good workout on my own yesterday so I thought Sherri and I would concentrate on upper body, which she said we would.... "only after we burn out the rest of your thighs", she said. "Gulp", went I. Not to let me down, Sherri cracked the whip over and over and those thighs were definitely screaming by the time she was done with those Super Sets. OUCH!, and I had an upper body workout to go! I didn't really pay much attention to the amount of weight... but I can tell form the number of irons on there as well as the lower the pin is getting on the machines that those weights are getting heavier and heavier and heavier, each and every time we meet. That's a good thing!!

Saturday TEAM Bluffton met once again together for a group workout. Trainer Jen was at the helm and had sort of a "obstacle course", of sorts, set up for us to do. Now, this course was timed so no one could "dilly-dally", we had to perform. That's always been one of the great things with the Battle-- nothing has ever been slack, or easy-does it, no, you have to be pushed to make life changes and we all have. I brought my youngest daughter with me, Kelsey, to do the gorup workout. She is a ocmpetitive gymnast so I wasn't concerned that she might not be able to keep up with the "Fab 5 from TEAM Bluffton". She told me when we left, that she thought that the exercises and tasks we had to do were great and she had done some of them in her training and some she had done in a little different way. It was great to share this experience with her.

Yeah... its true. I was sort of tinkering around with something and decided to try it... it worked but it "hurt me" too. See, where I am going with this is something called a "sauna suit". Some gave a top, which mimmicks a plasic bag with elastic, and said here try this.... it works wonders! So i thought about it, ran some of the datat through my head and yeas, it made sense. So knowing that I drink an enormous amount of water when I work out I decided to give it a shot. This was a mid-week workout... at BREAKTHROUGH FITNESS, where I concentrated on lots of cardio and some upper body. I never really noticed how much I was sweating until the last 15 minutes when I was on the stair climber. Sweat poured... thats not exaggerating... poured from my shorts. I didnt know what to think.