Weeks 8-11

It has been three weeks since my last post. Briana and I are coming up on our 12th week of work together. So much has happened over the past few weeks: Briana has had two weigh-ins, increased her distance on the treadmill, and gotten much stronger.

I weighed Briana in week eight and again in week ten. She lost three pounds in week eight and another two pounds in week ten. As of this posting, Briana weighs 210 pounds. She has lost a total of 17 pounds in 10 weeks! As many of you can imagine, Briana was thrilled with her progress at both weigh-ins. She immediately made a phone call to share the news with the people from her day program. The positive news gave her inspiration to work even harder and she seemed less grouchy when I pushed her.

The last time I updated Briana's progress on the treadmill, she was up to nine minutes. As of week ten, Briana had increased her time to 19 minutes! She has built a lot of stamina here. Although most days she goes through moments of agitation, she has become her best cheerleader. At this point, she likes me to stay next to her for half the time then finish the second half on her own. I stay close by to make sure she is okay, but I am trying to honor her independence and give her space to feel successful. I am so proud of her progress and her determination. When I see her this week, she will finally meet her goal of twenty minutes on the treadmill!

Briana's strength has increased exponentially in the last few weeks. I am amazed at how much she can do before she gets tired and needs to rest. We are working in true intervals - bringing her heart rate up with strength and cardio, then allowing a brief recovery before starting another set. She is finally getting hot and sweaty during her workout and does not seem to be bothered too much by it!

Now that we are concluding our first three months of training, I am looking forward to our next phase together. My plan is to break up the twenty minutes on the treadmill into two ten minute segments. She will begin her workout with a ten minute warm up on the treadmill. From there, she will do her Pilates exercises on the tower, followed by the intervals of cardio and strength training. She will end with a few more Pilates exercises on the tower followed by another ten minutes on the treadmill and stretching. I will increase the number of sets of each strength exercise to two sets and then increase the weights from five pounds to eight.

With the holidays behind me and things back to "normal," I look forward to posting weekly updates. I hope you will all continue to follow and share the blog with friends and family! I can't wait to see what the future holds for Briana!