100 crunch challenge completed!

The other day I challenged myself to complete 100 crunches straight by the end of June. I succeeded tonight! I even ended up doing an additional 40 reverse crunches afterward! I am so proud. I've decided I am going to keep right on doing this, even though I still have a lot of fat to burn off before results will really be apparent.

"Crunches, sit-ups, the plank and other core exercises primarily serve to tone, develop and define core muscles, including upper and lower abdominals. It's logical to think that they could make your entire stomach hard and big, by extension, but since those muscles are underlying and covered by fat, that's not the case. If you are slim, by contrast, those muscles will be located closer to the outer layer of your skin and the movements may help tighten and harden your midsection." Taken from here.

What do you think - should I keep doing the crunches or wait until I've lost another 30+ pounds? I am about 70 pounds away from my goal. I think I need to keep doing the crunches. It can't hurt, right?

I make sure that I not only do regular crunches, but I also do reverse crunches, oblique crunches, & bicycle crunches.

My new plan for the next week is really simple. I am going to do 20 minutes of intense walking/running, and then follow it up with some strength training. I will alternate back and forth for 80 minutes. I'm really concerned with getting my arms back to a respectable size & my belly, but I know lifting weights & doing crunches isn't enough. I need to make sure I am burning the fat off as I am toning my muscles in order to see the best results.

I screwed up a lot with my diet today. I did eat lots of fruit, but I also had a movie day/ mini celebration for my daughter's kindergarten play which involved quite a few sugar cookies & almost a full bag of popcorn. Ouch. It's okay though, I can learn from this. I won't let myself go as overboard as I did today. One interesting thing is instead of making multiple bags of sugar cookies like I used to, I only made one bag. We ended up with just under 30 cookies. The kids each had about 6 or 7. Laurin & I had the rest. Oops... Really sad thing is that's a lot less than we used to eat, haha!

I am working on that exercise I mentioned in a previous post, where I answer those 4 questions from my counselor.... It's a lot more difficult than I would have expected. I will post it on Monday, maybe sooner if I am not too busy this weekend. We'll see. It is Father's Day weekend, after all & I am hoping to make it a good one for Andrew. As far as the blog is concerned, I am making no guarantees.