A personal training & food journal. Read about our weight loss progress at Train With Ron in Chicago, our nutritional habits and the life changes we're making to get in shape and stay healthy!

	Happy Anniversary to Us! Thank You Ron, DB and Matt!!!!
	Posted by Monika Arturi | Comments

Today marks a full year that Dan and I have been on this journey, working out at Train With Ron. My tally for the year is: lost 53lbs, 16% body fat and dropped 10.5 dress sizes. These last couple of months I’ve really pushed hard trying to meet my ultimate goal (lose 75lbs) by the anniversary but instead I am dealing with this muscle strain.

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	March Madness Update After Week One
	Posted by Monika Arturi | Comments

I learned a few things this week and one of those is that I am sorely in need of some new workout shoes. But, we’ll come back to that later. I want to update you on my progress this week.

My last entry was on Wednesday and I’ve had 2 workouts since then. Thursday was rockin’, I was feeling good and able to push myself. Saturday my calves were really sore. They tightened up Friday afternoon and I spent most of Friday afternoon massaging them and stretching them. They were a little better by Saturday’s workout but still sore. My personal trainer Saturday was DB and he showed me a few ways to ease the pain and he also adjusted my workout so that it would help loosen my calves up. The rest of my body was in good shape, I felt. Upper body went well and in general I felt good throughout the entire workout and felt that I had good energy the whole time.

Again I have to emphasize that going into each workout, as well as this whole process, with a positive attitude makes the night and day difference that lets me push myself to my max. I could spin this into a whole other topic but having all of this extra weight on me for the past few years has really put a toll on my emotional self. I don’t even think I noticed how bad it was until I began to change it. As of late I’ve been feeling like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly who’s just cracked its shell. I know I have such a ways to go in this process but I am certainly very happy that my emotional self has caught up with me and will now help me take it to the finish with a great attitude. If your brain works similar to how mine did, and you are constantly being negative to yourself about yourself, you can turn it around. You have the power to say anything you want to yourself. Choose to be positive and encouraging rather than self deprecating. It’s really as simple as that to start and by overcoming the hurdle of discouraging yourself, you will begin to do great things because you KNOW you deserve it!

After my workout Saturday I was feeling good, happy that I made it through my 4th workout of the week and accomplished that part of my goal. I still had enough energy in me to play a little Shaun White Snowboarding followed by a little Wii Fit Yoga. Both of those help me with my balance which I struggled with a little bit yesterday. I think that it was because of not enough sleep though because usually, I’m not that bad. I was leaning all over the place.

Now the nutrition: My diet this week consisted of a small portion of oatmeal, fruits or egg whites with tea for breakfast, for lunch I had either a salad or some plain chicken broth. Fruit and nuts sprinkled throughout the day for snacks, plenty of water and then steamed veggies and chicken, a salad or light whole wheat pasta for dinner. I only had a couple of cravings and I thought about what I would stand to lose if I indulged it and it quickly went away. If only everything were this easy. I also got busy with something else to take my mind off of it.

I lost 2.5lbs this week which is 1 lb more than my average weekly weight loss for the past 5 months. I’ll take that! I would like it to have been a little more but I’m happy about it and I do not want it to be out of control. (I think we have a long way to go before it gets ‘out of control’ ) I will just have to see how I can push myself harder next week.

I have today off and it feels so good to relax the muscles!

Going back to the state of my sad little workout shoes, I have to just go out and get another pair. Now, I will say something pretty shocking here and that is…. I do not like to shop for shoes…. I know!!! What kind of woman am I? Well, the type that doesn’t like to buy a shoe to match each and every one of her emotions. (If you sense a little aggravation there then you are very perceptive.) Regardless, I have to go and buy some new ones and I think the sooner the better. The ones I’ve been wearing now are more for running only. I don’t know how they decide that but that’s what it says on the shoe and I need some more cushioning, support and balance. And I want them to be cute. Hey, I’m still a girl! So I’ll walk in, take a look around the ‘wall o’ shoes’ and let the battle of sensible vs. cute and supportive vs. sexy begin.

I think we all know who wins this game, right? Look for pictures this week to find out how I did with the shoes and my March Madness!!

	Day Six
	Posted by Daniel Arturi | Comments

We had our second session today. The trainer was Matt Ulrich, former Indianapolis Colts offensive lineman and special teams player. He is the first Super Bowl Champion I have ever met and I could not help but be awed by that colossal feat. I had to ask him: “What’s it like to win the Super Bowl?” He thought a second, as if to relive the moment, then looked at me and said, “It’s a pretty cool deal, man.” He is very humble but clearly proud of the accomplishment… I mean, how many of us reach the absolute pinnacle of our career at the tender age of 27? I was humbled.

That humility quickly turned to agonizing pain as the workout commenced. It was mostly a cross training session: 30 reps of weights, then run a bunch, then 30 more reps of a different movement, then run… weights… run… pushups (I could not do even knee pushups after the warmup 25 I had to do). We did the full warmup (which caused me great pain 5 days ago) plus 40 more minutes of cross training. When it was over, I was overheated, lightheaded, I thought I might pass out. It took me about an hour to cool down and feel like myself again. I feel pretty good right now but I know that more is coming.

I have stuck to the eating regimen, except for the guilty pleasure of a daily cup with cream and sugar, although much less cream and sugar than I used to use.

Tomorrow will be a “free” day, I’ll still exercise (20 minute power walk) but I will not worry as much about what I eat… I’ll just reduce quantity and enjoy some football… Week One is almost in the books and although it’s been tough, it really hasn’t been THAT bad.