I'm back! Who is this girl?

Well, have you missed us posting? I was just thinking about this blog and thought it would be nice to update it. Here is a little Nikky update from the past few months.

Who is this girl? I am now the girl that goes to the YMCA multiple times a day during her MEA vacation. I shop in only two sections of the grocery store (produce and meat). I say no to committing to things that would not allow me to attend my favorite classes at the gym. I organize my day around meals and exercise. I have more energy for my students. I am happier.

This is just a brief summary of how much I have changed since starting this journey in June. Yes, there are times when things do not go so well or when I choose to not follow the plan (darn wine!). There are weeks when I am overwhelmed or just tired from this journey and want to take a break. HOWEVER, I have experienced success and it is addicting! I have an amazing support system in Austin that makes the day-to-day struggles not so bad. I have recruited great friends to join me at the gym and make better choices when I go out. I have found an amazing faith community that encourages my gift and draws me nearer to God. I know that the Lord is my ultimate priority and I am still working on giving the control over to Him daily.

So, what does a typical week look like? I am posting this mostly to encourage anyone that would like to join us at the Y or maybe just needs motivation to get off the couch.
Monday - Deep Water Aerobics
Tuesday/Thursday - Cycling and Kickboxing
Wednesday - PiYo and Kickboxing (really early in the morning!)
Friday-Cyclebox
Saturday - Cycling
Sunday - DAY OF REST:)

Are you up for the challenge? I love each one of these classes and it helps so much to have the motivation of the instructors. Cycling has been an amazing workout and each time I have a total "Biggest Loser" sweat dripping on the floor moment! I am still sticking to the food plan consisting of 5 meals a day and using the guidelines I learned from my time at Fitness North.

Goals? My ultimate goal is still pretty far away but I will share some short term goals. I would like to lose 19 more pounds by Christmas and 40 more pounds by April 1. I would love for you to pray for me because I know there will be temptations and busy concert schedules. I will try and keep you updated on the progress in the next few months.

Happy Fall!
Blessings,
Nikky

Results

Sorry to make you wait so long! It has been a crazy few days and we are still trying to adjust to being home. Here are the short and sweet results from our time at Fitness North.

Nikky - 39lbs and 17 inches
Camille - 37lbs and 18.25 inches

We will continue to update our blog so stay tuned for more exciting adventures!

Nikky and Camille

Day 27 and 28

I am writing this post from the comfort of my couch in (drum roll please!).....Austin! Let me go back to Saturday and tell you what we did. The morning started with our official weigh out and measurements. Then we had pancakes, blueberries, and turkey sausage for breakfast. Can you believe it?! It was so good but not many of us could finish our plates. Then we loaded into a van and traveled to Duluth where we went to a Zumba class on the beach. I loved every minute! Camille was a little out of her element but you should have seen her wicked moves (wink, wink)!:) Then we went down to Canal Park and rented some bikes. These were not your normal bikes. They had four seats and sets of pedals, two in front and two in the back. They looked so easy but we soon found out they were much harder than they seemed. At one point we had to pull over because we were laughing so hard when a runner passed our bike. It was a great final celebration and we had a ton of fun. The afternoon was filled with packing and exit meetings. The grand finale included celebrating Sheryl's birthday by throwing her a little party. We also presented Leif and Kelly with some gifts. We even listed all our favorite Leif quotes from our time at Fitness North. We laughed a lot and it brought back many great memories. After the staff left we played a couple of hands of cards before going to bed (after dark!). The morning brought many goodbyes and even some tears. Camille and I could not believe that we were actually leaving. We made it! We had a wonderful drive to the cities with Kelly and talked a ton about our time at Fitness North. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone but we know that we are ready to continue this journey at home. I promise we will post our results when Camille comes back to Austin and we can share it together. They are quite amazing and we are so proud.

Hope you're sitting on pins and needles!
Nikky and Camille

Day 26...IT"S FRIDAY!!!

I can't believe that today is day 26 and it is FRIDAY!!! It is our last unofficial workout day because tomorrow is fun day!!  We started off with a 2 hour pool workout.  Then we went back to the dreaded ballroom.  I know that I told you I had retired the ballroom, but they didn't ask my opinion...go figure.  So we started out with some core and then Leif had a surprise for us.  He has set up 10 cards of Tyson squats.  For those of you that don't know what a Tyson squat is here you go:  you go up to the first card and squat down to pick it up, then you go to the next card and squat down and put the first card down and then squat down to pick them back up again one at a time.  In other words 10 cards = 100 squats.  He asked for five volunteers and Nikky, Tara, Allyson, Camille and myself volunteered.  We all did it and then the rest of the group did it as well.  I had been mentally preparing for this day so I tried 15 cards and I did it!! That is 225 squats for those of you that wanted to know.  Then Devil Boy (Leif) made us run up and down the stairs 5 times.  Is he CRAZY!! I couldn't even feel my legs.  Then we continued to do core training and then step aerobics with the Bosu ball.  We had one more round of Bosu ball and I asked if I could do Tyson Squats instead, I hate that darn bosu ball.  So I ended up doing 10 more cards.  Which is another 100 squats!!  Do the math everyone, that is 325 squats for me today.  My legs will feel it in the morning.  Don't worry though we were not done yet.  Leif had some more torture up his sleeve for us.  He was preparing for Devil Boy Terrors (That is where you get in the plank position and have to push a 20lb kettle ball across the floor of the ball room).  He was pretty excited to make us do these. But we had a surprise for him...last week the winners of the Ultimate game in the pool were granted a VETO.  This meant we could veto one exercise we didn't want to do.  We decided to play our VETO card and not to the devil boy terrors.  I think Leif was disappointed he couldn't make us do them, but a  deal is a deal.  Instead we ran 5 suicides with a 20lb kettle ball in each hand.  Beats having to do Devil Boy Terrors.  Then we did 5 more suicides with no kettle bells and then WE RETIRED THE BALLROOM!!!  YEAH!!!

This afternoon we went to the gym for about 100 minutes.  We even had a little extra time to stimulate the economy of Two Harbors.  We did a little shopping at a few cute shops downtown.  After two we were pretty tired and had to go home and cook dinner.  We are now going to bed so we can get up at 6am for our final weigh in and measurements.  I can't wait to find out my results tomorrow.  Stay tuned on Sunday and we will post them for you.  Hopefully it stops raining so we can Zumba on the beach tomorrow.

God Bless,
Camille and Nikky

Day 25...To the Lighthouse!

Well today we started out a little earlier than usual because Nikky, Camille C. and I decided to walk to the lighthouse and the tugboat.  Nikky was so excited because this was her goal for our morning walk since the first week and she did it!! I am so proud of her!! Here are the pictures to prove it:

Then we drove to Hermantown and went to Jill's 4UFitness.  We did a spin class, some kickboxing and kettle bell training with Jill and Danielle.  They are awesome and we are going to practice our TRX planks and come back to visit them when we can hold them for one minute.  Don't worry Jill, we will be back:)  We got back to Two Harbors and had a gym workout after that.

Tonight we ventured down to the hot tub...first time all month.  We spent about an hour and a half there and then made the trek back up the stairs.  It was well worth it though.  We are looking forward to tomorrow being over so we can have our fun day on Saturday.  If the weather is nice we are going to Zumba on the beach...YEAH!!

                                                   All of the cards we have received in the mail!!

We want to thank all of you that have sent us cards in the mail.  It is truly a highlight of our day.  Even  our roommates get excited for us.  We are so blessed to have such good family and friends.  You are all such a blessing in our lives and we couldn't do this without you.  Thanks for all of the texts, facebook messages, and phone calls too.  You are all AMAZING and we love you tons!!  Can't wait to see you all soon and continue our journey with the love and support of those around us. 

God Bless,
Camille and Nikky

Day 24...Where Am I?

Is it Sunday yet??  No, but we are one day closer.  Today started out as usual with our morning walk and pool workout.  We see the same guy on our walk every morning, I wonder if he will miss us next week?  Then we had our circuit day in the ballroom.  Leif was so nice he made our rounds 90 seconds instead of 60...it is amazing how much harder those last 30 seconds can be.   I am hoping that was our last day in the ballroom, but if the weather doesn't hold out I am fearing I might have to go back on Friday.  I don't know if I can run one more suicide!!

Then came the afternoon hike.  We had some injuries, blisters, family emergencies and a few other reasons that a few people had to stay back and only 4 of us went on the hike.  So Leif, Kelly, and the four of us loaded up and took off for our hike.  Let me start out by telling you all how sore and tired my legs were before I started this hike.  It was supposed to be a loop, but loop it did not.  It was an uphill climb (I felt like I was rock climbing) and I didn't think my legs were going to make it.  We walked through ankle deep mud, over rocks, through forests, and then I started to get a little worried because we were walking along the river and we walked uphill so much we weren't even by that anymore.  No one really knew where we were so we stuck to the trail.  I got excited when I saw a man walking toward us.  I asked him if the parking lot was close by and he said, "I don't know I came from Canada. I have been hiking for 17 days."  WHAT!!! Where am I going and how am I going to get out of here.  After trudging uphill through mud and rock we finally got to the top of the mountain.  We thought we were almost to the parking lot, but we looked down and way off in the horizon we saw our vehicle sitting in the parking lot.  I felt like one of the Von Trap family climbing the mountains out of Austria. Only I was heading to Canada.  We just kept walking and eventually found a trail that went down.  We made it to the highway and walked that back to our car.  I have never been so happy to see a highway in my life.  I did consider hitchhiking back to Austin, but I figured I got this far I might as well finish.  My legs are killing me and I am trying to be nice to my feet so I have given them their own pillow.  I am trying to sweet talk them into surviving 3 more days. 

Tomorrow is another day closer to Sunday so I am going to head to bed and dream about Sunday.

Camille and Nikky

Day 23 - Could this really be our last leg day?

Hello family and friends! Well, this morning started with our normal walk except for one thing...Kelly made me her special project for today! She is our wellness coach and is just about the happiest person I have ever met. She kept challenging my speed by walking ahead of me so I had no choice but to keep up. Our normal walk is about 3.4 miles but there are also "excursions" you can take to the lighthouse and the tug boats. Last week I made it to the tug boats with Leif  but it took me a little longer than 1 hour. Today (with Kelly's push!) I made the entire route with time to spare. Yay me! My goal is to hit both by the end of the week. We then had our pool workout with no deck jumps because we had worked our arms so hard the day before. Isn't Leif nice?:) We then went to the ballroom for the last day of leg circuits - well, at least Camille was trying to negotiate it to be our last! I think the reason why we hate leg days is because every day seems like a leg workout with all the walking we do. Our legs are sore before we even start! We completed nine flights of stairs, 20 wall sits, mountain climbers, all sorts of lunges, squats, and many other things that make our legs cry out in pain. Camille was even asking the maintenance guys for rides home. They just told her she could make it. I think Fitness North has brainwashed them too! Our last circuit was suppose to be 60 seconds at each station but Leif decided if two of us could hold a wall sit for two minutes we could change it to 30 seconds. Four of us volunteered and we all succeeded! Camille and I were so proud that our legs could hold out for that long. It was awesome! We also ran a couple relays and suicides before the torture was finally over. We ended with ab work and a cool down walk on the beach. It is so nice outside today! It finally feels like summer. The afternoon with split with some of us going to Gooseberry for a hike and some staying back to use the gym. Camille was lucky enough to go on the hike and I was stuck trying to give my hamstring a break by working the gym for 2 hours.

We appreciate the support from everyone reading our blog. The comments, facebook messages, emails, and phone calls are so awesome. We received at ton of cards today! It was such a wonderful surprise and we treasured all of the encouragement. It was needed! Our time at Fitness North is coming to a close but this is only the start. Even though we won't be working out 8 hours a day we will continue to update you on our journey and progress. You are all awesome! THANK YOU!!!!

Until tomorrow,
Nikky and Camille