Progress

Well. 9 days into the new year and I'm actually feeling pretty good about how things are going. Could I be better? Of course! But I'm pleased with the decisions I've made. I've tried a new food already. Finished burning some of my CD's, I've created and have been sticking to a working out routine. I've been dairy free 4 out of 9 days. And gluten free 6 out of 9 days. And really it's not like I've horribly binged on everything dairy and gluten. For the dairy it was just the fact that I had a regular iced coffee instead of a soy one. The rest of the day was fine. And then today I had 2 cinnamon rolls. The icing I'm sure had milk in it, so I counted that as dairy today. Oh and then I had some chicken nuggets at dinner. And then the other day that I had gluten was the day I had a normal waffle in the morning because I was going to work out and hadn't gone to the store yet.And then stayed gluten free the rest of the day. I guess I forgot that I didn't start all these food goals until the second. So technically I'm one day off, but oh well.

The majority of the time I have made the right decisions and been gluten and dairy free. And I'm not angry or mad at myself. I knew that I was going to be easing myself into it. And I could tell today. I came home with a headache. Which I knew was from the food. So I can already tell that it's working. I just need to get that regular coffee down to once a week ;)

So my coworker the other day showed me a product on facebook that she had seen a picture of. It's called gluten-ease. And you are supposed to be able to take it before you eat gluten or casein. (Which is what I am allergic to) and it's supposed to help you digest the gluten or casein better and help your body with them. I'm pretty intrigued by it. At first I was a little leary about it. I don't want to be reliant on something to help me digest something I'm not supposed to be eating in the first place. But then I became curious and want to try it. Well mainly because I want to keep on drinking Dutch Bros :) I just can't handle a soy Iced kicker :( Not good at all!. So I'm probably going to end up getting some and trying it out. Not so I can get away with eating all the crap I was before, but if I want to get my coffee once a week, or if I'm in a social setting that I know I'm going to be served food I shouldn't be eating I can try it. I'm not willing to go soy everything. I can handle soy in my hot coffees. But not in cold. So yeah..that's just something that I saw. But it did have a warning saying it wasn't intended for people with Celiac's disease. I don't want to become dependent on something like that. But a little help now and them wouldn't hurt ;)

And the gym :) Oh I am quickly liking going the gym late at night. Like after 8 or almost 9. It's been pretty empty in there at that time. So I'm not fighting anyone over machines or anything like that. And I'm not being intimidated by what the people around me are doing. Except for the one guy running tonight. He had great form and was just going to town on that treadmill. I wasn't gonna get right next to him and start huffing and puffing haha!

So tonight it was Week one of c25k day 2. I'm seriously only running at a 3 mph pace. But I'm moving :) And its not hurting my knee still. Last night I was there and I did the strength training that I learned about when I went and had someone show me the machines. I was able to find most of them, but I can't remember what some of them are haha!! So I didn't get to do those ones. But it was good to get some strength training in. That's one of my weaker areas for sure. But having the clipboard there and writing down what I did is going to help me be accountable to it for sure! And then I'm not wandering aimlessly around the weights wondering what the heck to do. I'd forgotten how much I'd missed the machines! I'm looking forward into getting back into that for sure.

And I guess today I just started feeling a little smaller. It's been around a week now. I would think that I should be seeing some results. My stomach seems a little smaller, and either I really need to wash my jeans or they were fitting a little bit looser. Or it could be both. It's going to be interesting to keep going with the not weighing myself all year. I really want to know haha! But then again I don't really want to know. What if it was a much smaller number than I would have wanted? See I don't have any level of disappointment here. Only in the fact that I didn't do the goals. So I'm still thinking I'm going to be much better off in the process :)

Well I better get off to bed. I might be liking this night owl thing at the gym...but my body's internal clock is still waking me up too early! So yeah..it needs to act accordingly!

Contagious

It's also a good thing that I didn't make a goal of blogging every day ;) Because sometimes life just goes by in a blink!

So today I started my second college class ever. I woke up exhausted today. Don't you hate that when that happens? Water Aerobics kicked my butt yesterday. I LOVE my Monday night instructor. She had us doing BALLET under water and then a few minutes later we were jumping up and shooting baskets like we were playing basketball. I was highly amused. I was never one to say I was athletic when I was younger. The whole point of doing it in the water is to prove I'm not athletic..Haha..anyways. So I was pretty beat after the class and got to bed around 10:30. Needless to say 6 am came way to fast. (Just like it will tomorrow!!)

But today I went and did what I always do this time of year. Restart C25K ;) I am bound and determined to make myself a runner. I'm just a runner with a lot of breaks that's all. Yeah. That's it. And it totally just dawned on me after I got home. My knee didn't bother me one bit while I was on the treadmill. One of the reasons that I quit running on the treadmill at my grandparents house last year was that it was actually hurting my knee to run. Now granted that treadmill was ancient. (No offense Grandma) The ones at the gym are a little newer. And I kept the incline at zero. I mean c'mon. I"m gonna ease myself into this. But it didn't hurt my knee. So that's going to be encouraging as I continue to go.

Which I did in total icy conditions tonight. As I left class, ( Oh yeah, rabbit trail, I will get back to that) it had started to freeze rain/snow winter mix. Whatever you want to call it. Now it's no Polar Vortex over here...and I've got snow tires on. So I'm not too concerned about driving in it. I have driven in way worse blizzard type weather and I didn't consider this to be too bad. I got to the gym about 7:40 and there was literally like 5 people there. I'm thinking I'm gonna like going later in the evening because of the fact there is less people. I was actually expecting there to be a lot of people because it's the beginning of the year and people resolve to lose weight and all that jazz. There hasn't really been an influx of people in water aerobics and at 8 pm no one is working out. I think I picked a great gym :) I'm gonna see how crazy it is on a Saturday morning this week when I start running and THEN doing water aerobics. Cause I'm crazy like that. I needed to do 3 runs a week and I don't want to do them on back to back days. So I had to double up on one day. And well Saturday seems like a good day to do that..I'm gonna try it out this month and see how it goes.

Back to school.

Since it was the first day of class we had to do the obligatory get to know each other mixer thing. Well my teacher is very creative. We made a t-shirt out of construction paper. And we had to write our name, one word to describe ourselves, what we wanted out of the class, our favorite food, and one thing people wouldn't know about me. I secretly hate these things. So while we were at the table I said out loud..One word to describe me? And one of the gals who was in the class with me last quarter said the word "Contagious".

And it resonated inside of me.

Do people think I'm Contagious? Do they follow what I do? Does it make me able to get people to do things when they otherwise wouldn't? Does it make me a leader? Or is it just an attitude?

I WANT to be contagious. I want people to see who I am and want to be like me. I want to smile at people and have it change their day. I want to be able to walk into a room and shift the atmosphere of the room because I am there. I shouldn't be taking on the attitude of whoever is in the room. I should be creating it.

It gave me hope for this year. To learn how to be contagious. It's about getting people to catch on to what you have or what you are doing. To get people to come alongside you and be with you. To change people when they didn't even know they wanted to be changed ;)

I want to be contagious.

And I will leave you with this treat. I love Dutch Bros. Specifically the one right by my house. They literally know my order as I pull up and remember who I am. Yeah it makes me feel special ok? And as much as I need to go dairy free...DB is gonna be my dairy treat because dang it...I just can't get their soy kicker to taste good :( So today on my way to class I stopped by to get my drink. When I got to class I saw this:

It just made my night :0) Thanks DB for taking good care of me :) ❤️

Goals for January

Well..I have some goals

I did this two ways...just every day goals..things I will actually be able to accomplish ;) And then I made the workout calendar. Haha..That one might get some tinkering done with. And well you can see that on my Birthday not only will I be at college, I will then be going to the gym for a lovely session of C25K which I seem to be eternally starting over. Dag nab it. I am surely to get my 250 pounds of self into a runner. And it will surely help me in getting ready for Bloomsday. Yes I said that word. The biggest 12k fun run in the state if not in the US? I'd have to check on that. I made a verbal commitment to do it this year with two of my cousin's on my Dad's side. Now that being the beginning of the month I would like to think about moving out in, and the month before I want to be in California for two weeks for a class at a church I don't know if it will happen. But I am going to train for it. Especially if I get to do it with them :0) And it's less than 20.00 to register for, so I'm sure I will be ok...

So here they are :0) My goals

 

~Dairy Free/Gluten Free (1 milk coffee a week)

~Try 2 new foods this month to be determined

~Complete workout sheet

~Register for Bloomsday (May 4th)

~Research School of Worship for July at Bethel

~Make bed every day

~Get CD’s transferred to external hard drive by end of month

~Set aside time to read Bible, pray, worship daily
~Take care of my feet every day, whether its washing or soaking or putting a treatment on. Get these toes cleared up in 2014!!

~Stay off of the scale

So some of these are easy peasy. Like Registering for Bloomsday and making my bed. I mean really how hard is it to straighten out my comforter and make it look nice. Pretty hard apparently. I can't ever seem to do it. Unless I know someone that doesn't live in my house is going to be coming in my room. Then I make sure to do it. I'm really just lazy. That's all there is to it. 

And yes. For now I'm planning on treating myself to Dutch Bros Coffee the night of my college class. I will see how it starts affecting my stomach and go from there. I can't be running out of the class every week to go to the bathroom..so we shall see. 

I need to be serious about dairy free. I need to be serious about gluten free. My body is just so bloated. And I'm wondering if this eternal headache isn't from food and not the stagnant air warning that we are having. Those two right there are going to be the hardest goals to accomplish. I know that for sure.

I figured 2 new foods a month would be good to try. This is another thing I'm pretty leery about. But if I have to cut the majority of what I eat out of my life I'm gonna have to be adding stuff into it. So it's just going to have to happen whether I want it to or not. 

I just need to have a deadline for getting my cd's transferred to my hard drive. Ok. I have over 300 cd's that just take up room in my room. It's time for them to go digital and disappear. Well most of them. Some of them I'm going to keep (like the Christmas ones for sure) but the others unless they are signed or special things I'm planning on getting rid of. I don't even have a cd player anymore unless you count my computer. So the reasoning for me to keep them is really gone. It's really kinda sad. I was a die-hard CD girl. I didn't like going digital. I love opening the covers and seeing the lyrics and reading them cover to cover. But they just aren't the same anymore..and they are cheaper online. So I have caved. Plus I just don't have room to store over 300 cd's that I don't listen to anymore. Some people collect movies. I collected CD's :) I'm not much of a movie girl. I probably own less than 25 movies. And that might be generous. ;)

And to be honest, I haven't had success in the last couple of years at establishing a quiet time with the Lord routine. And I so desperately need to get a routine back. And this is the year it will happen :0)

So there you have it. My goals for January. I think at this point I'm only going to take it one month at a time. I can set my mind to do anything for 4 weeks. And that will keep it fresh and exciting. And it will keep me having to come up with more things to plan for. So yeah. There it is :0)

 

Wednesday weigh in week 51

Woah. I can't believe that I have been doing this for almost an entire year! And I can't believe I have gained all about about 10 pounds of my weight back. This definitely wasn't how the story played out in my head in January when I was serious and started all of this. This was going to be my year, and I was finally going to do it! Flash forward to December. My mom has had surgery 3 times this year, and I have had 3 deaths in the family since October. Less than 2 months. Um yeah. I have learned this year that I definitely live by circumstances. I have periods of doing great. Especially when I have a goal! And then life throws me a curve ball, and well, Dairy Queen becomes my new BFF. The most I lost this year was 25 pounds. So 15 has crept back on. And boy can I feel it!

And I know the things I need to do. I need to quit drinking coffee. I need to quit eating dairy. I need to quit eating wheat. I know how my body feels when I don't have these things in me. Especially when I am allergic to them. It's just so. dang. hard. To all of the sudden throw out a food you have eaten your entire life. And the staples of your diet. I mean. I tell people all of the things I am allergic to and they ask me what the heck I eat. Um yeah. Not a whole lot. And then I sneak in the foods that I shouldn't be eating. And don't even get me started on exercise. Here's the thing. When I work out. I lose weight. When I don't work out? I don't lose weight. Plain and simple. Cut and dry. Well yeah. If I could just manage to stay away from all the foods that I'm allergic to, and work out 6 times a week, I would probably have it made :)

Oh speaking of running, since I really wasn't ;) I finally just jumped ahead again to week 8 of the Couch to 5k and ran for half an hour today. Well I really didn't jump ahead because it was the week I was scheduled to do it. But I haven't ran at all in the last 2 weeks. The last day I did was week 6 day 1. And today I decided since it wasn't raining, and I really needed to get back to my running, I would just go for it. And I am such a fashion crisis when I run. It's kinda just ridiculous. Blue ear warmers, red and green shirts, black pants and black gloves. Oh and a white passport belt around my waist because that's my poor girl's running belt. (I mean, I actually thought it was genius! I had a belt, and it will hold my key, phone, and other little things. And then it wasn't all in my pockets, which my capris didn't have).

But I did my 30 minute run. And the craziest thing came out of my mouth when I was done. "Well that was kinda easy!" uh yeah. Well the first mile was 19:09 and the second mile was 19:03. I apparently did really good on my breathing because I wasn't out of breath, and completely wheezing or anything like that. Either that or I just plan didn't work hard enough. But I did realize that when I run my virtual 5k for Katie's 31st birthday next month that I will have to pick up a little speed. I'm thinking I was stupid when I said I wanted to finish it in under 48 minutes I think. I'm pretty sure I forgot I was back up to a 19 minute mile and not an 17 minute one. Hmmm...How am I going to do it that fast? If I go the pace I ran today it will still take me almost an hour to run 3.1 miles.I definitely need to drop some pounds so my time will speed up :0)

I was expecting to be panting when I started my 5 minutes of cooling down..but nope. I was fine. I miss running. Of course we are getting into the cold part of winter. I don't have a treadmill. I can't afford a gym. So I am just heading outside. OH and my knee didn't hurt while I was running! That was nice. When I started my little training plan it kept twinging while I was running, and it didn't do that today. I was a happy girl.

Ok, I could just blab blab blab..so I am going to get my lunch ready for work tomorrow and head to bed. But here is my picture. of my gain. Next week will be different.

Wednesday weigh in week 46

Well I realized I got buy and didn't recap my Bloomsday training last week. I actually skipped a workout. I ended up being sick that day and wanted to run but eventually decided against it. I took a total extra day of rest. I am hopefully getting back to feeling like a normal person. Except for when I stay up until 1:00 am on election day and get up 4 hours later :/ (I am EXHAUSTED right now..short post). I have a feeling I am going to switch up next week a little bit and trade my running day and cross training day. Monday is a holiday, so I don't have work. And I can go run that day and then cross train on Tuesday and it will be good :0) Which is what I ended up doing today. I was just so beat from only getting 4 hours of sleep and being on my feet all day that I decided to rest my legs and I will cross train on Friday which was supposed to be my rest day. :-) I'm glad I can be flexible and not beat myself up when I do things like that. Whew. So that's the current update on Bloomsday!

And I don't know where the ___ 3 pounds came on from, but it did. Not really liking a 3 pound gain right now. All I can say is my stomach feels like it is full of air, and has for a couple of days. So I guess I'm not surprised, but definitely irritated. Things will be changing in my food and they will be changing quite soon. I'm thinking I pretty much have to cut out all dairy and wheat/gluten again. I've been lax in those areas. And I'm pretty sure that's the cause of it. So I need to get back to serious over here. Which is probably gonna mean no more coffee again. I just have quite the love/hate relationship with coffee. I love it, well I love it with milk and syrup..but that's the problem. I don't love it with almond milk, or coconut milk. And I'm just scared to try soy milk. So I guess it means it will have to go bye bye again. Or at least move to a social thing. Where I could have it once in a while while I'm out with a friend. But not every day like I have been. Plus it's just an added money cost that I simply don't have right now. Crazy as it seems, I should spend the money that I spend on coffee every month and spend it on real foods ;) or Vitamins even ;) What a thought! I think I'm gonna phase it out by an every other day thing for right now. I only have a few grounds left. So yeah. Maybe someday I won't be allergic to milk anymore and I will be able to enjoy coffee again. But definitely decaf. If I start drinking it again it will have to be decaf. Whole other topic LOL!

oh yeah..I said short post huh? :0)

Wednesday Weigh in Week 44

My oh my. Are we getting closer to the end of the year or what? My calendar tells me I only have 10 more weigh ins to go until the end of the year. My new goal is simple. To be under 200 pounds by then. I mean as long as I can manage 2 pounds a week I am basically there. If I have two 3 pound weeks I am golden :) This is where my last minute-ness starts to kick in and tell me to get moving. But I am moving :)

See? I manged to lose another pound :) I really don't know how? I'm thinking the apple cider vinegar pills might be helping. But at any rate! I'm taking it. So I have 23 pounds to go before the end of the year. That's a good mini goal.

I'm pretty sure when I came up with this Bloomsday goal that I wasn't thinking I would get sick right away. But here I am still sick :( I stayed home from work again today since I woke up hacking up my lung :( Needless to say the couch and my bed have been my friend today. As well as my neti pot. I think this sickness is the first time that I've actually seen liquid snot coming out of my nose. I mean it's quite amazing! TMI I know. But I'm certain it has helped me avoid a full on sinus infection. I don't quite know what's up with this cough. But it's gonna have to go!

Yesterday I started my Couch to 5k over. I was so sure I was going to be running in full on rain but by the time school ended it had cleared up a bit. It was still cold!! But rain clouds on one side of me and sunshine on the other. I had some sprinkles going on but I finished Day one! I surprisingly don't feel as out of shape as I was expecting to be. I think I'm gonna pick up pretty easily on it again. And hopefully fall into a good rhythm. I am however going to have to seriously be looking at ways to strengthen my knee. I never did do a good job at my physical therapy after my surgery when I tore my ACL/Meniscus. I don't have my full range of motion back. I don't know if it's possible. But I want to try. I need to feel like I can trust my knee and not think it's going to give out on me at any given time during my run. Any suggestions would be welcomed :0)

Today I cheated just a little in my workout. I know 3 days in and I think I'm cheating. I totally counted walking around Walmart doing my grocery shopping as my cardio for the day. But hey. I'm sick. And that was an outing! I walked around the store for almost an hour and had to put things in and take things out of the cart and car. Good grief! And then I did an arm workout video that I found on Sparkpeople's youtube page. I like that I can find a short (9 minutes!) video to watch to help me start toning up my arms. I'm not very consistent at strength training like I should. But that is one of the goals for this training plan is to add in strength. And it will probably increase as I go. I am actually weirdly looking forward to doing some yoga as one of my training days. I think it's going to help me gain some flexibility and take away some stress. And I know I'm not going to be able to do everything right away, but it will increase. And I'm only going to be doing it once a week anyway. So I am gonna start with a 20 minute thing I found on youtube. I'm impressed that Youtube has all these videos! Haha..it makes it easier to try things before purchasing them for sure!

But I have worked out for 3 days in a row! And that is helping me get back into the routine of things!!

Bloomsday Training week 1

Hmm. I wish I knew a whole lot more about blogs and I could creatively show you my new training plan for Bloomsday next year.

See I was chatting with a friend. And we were talking about a local 5k that was coming up next month, and did we want to train for it and do it. Well right now the cost of races really stops me from doing anything. I'm just broke. constantly. Ok? And we jokingly were talking about the 12k race that we have done before(Bloomsday), and saving our money for entering that one. It's pretty much a 7.46 miles fun run with a t-shirt. It kinda blows my mind sometimes to think that I have done it 4 times. What can I say besides I'm a glutton for punishment? I mean it literally takes about 2.5 hours for us to WALK it. And that's not including potty breaks.

But back to the story. I was saying that we pretty much had 30 weeks(when we were talking about it) to train for it. And well yeah, that's over half a year away. I was all gung-ho and she was hesitant. I talked about how we could start our C25K training over and then we could even train for a half marathon and then only doing 7.46 miles of that would seem like a snap! See? I can be really convincing :0)

She told me I was crazy.

I told her she could do it. And she doesn't give herself enough credit. And we could have a friend come up with a plan for us.

Ok. Let's try.

All the while I didn't know she was having this internal battle about the whole process. See she and I are very much alike. This whole year I've been trying to Finish what I start. I can do the race. Heck I've done it 4 years. But it's the whole training, and figuring out a plan, and actually sticking to it for the next 28 weeks that we can never seem to accomplish. We talk the talk, but we don't walk the walk. And so this time around it's the training and finishing the training that's going to seem like more of a success then actually finishing the race.

So I emailed a friend, and she came up with a 10 week plan for us, that was 10 weeks out from the race. So I ended up making a 28 week one to finish off getting us to that 10 week part. Starting over with C25k training and keeping up the momentum. We recruited another friend to join us, and another one following the plan in a another state and we have a plan!

So now it's game day! And of course. I'm sick. I mean it never fails does it? I come up with this amazing plan, and then I go and get sick. But since it's not in my chest yet, I still plan on doing a Walk away the pounds video here in a little while just to get me started. Man. I always say video. I started doing these when they were videos :-) Now they are DVD's but I will forever be calling them videos!

In essence the plan is to cross train and strength train on Mondays/Wednesdays; C25K (and eventually run) on Tuesdays/Thursdays/Saturdays; Stretching on Sundays; and have a complete rest day on Fridays. And then after the C25k training is done, we are going to incorporate hills on Thursdays because there is a lot of hills in this race. I thought this was genius thinking to do it the day before a complete rest day :0)

So here is a picture of the plan! It looks daunting. And yes. I did thumb tack it to my door so my entire family could see what I'm going to be doing for the next 28 weeks. I plan on highlighting or crossing off the days I have done to see what I do. I'm kind of excited!

28 weeks to go!

Wednesday Weigh in Week 36

This week I held steady. I'm kind of impressed. I'm really just glad I didn't gain anything. Haha. It's just hard ok. I mean I really want to find something to blame. But I know the truth. I'm still eating foods that my body doesn't agree with and I'm still not working out. Those two things will cause me to not lose weight. And those are things that I know. The sad thing is once you fall out of the habit of working out it gets so much harder to start. But I know I have to. The weather is starting to cool off again so it's not going to be so hot after school to go running. I feel like I am going to have to start over completely with the Couch to 5k. Hopefully not. I know I'm probably going to need to start out with some more walking and running intervals. But really what I need to do is just start it. I had my running stuff packed yesterday and I was gonna go for a run until I realized I left my belt and my headphones at the house instead of my car. And I was already short on time, so I just came home instead. Little things like that.

So yeah. I gotta bust a move. Literally. :0)

Running while sick?

I'm in that weird balance of not being healthy, but not really feeling sick? I know that I have just been super exhausted lately. I came home from work Monday and took a 5 hour nap. I knew the other person in my room's entire family was sick, so she was gone Tuesday and part of Wednesday so I knew I had to go to work, and today my teacher was gone a half day. Gotta be there today too. What's a sorta sick, but mainly tired girl to do?

Take nyquill and sleep for 12 hours! LOL. That's what I did last night. Went to bed at 6:30 pm and got out of bed at 6:30 am this morning. I'm still feeling slightly edgy like I'm not feeling well. But I'm not coughing. My throat isn't as sore. But I am making sure to use the Neti pot, and salt water gargles and getting my vitamins in.

And what did we wake up to this morning? SNOW! In March. Craziness. And then by the time I got off work it was sunny, beautiful and a good 52 degrees. Perfect time for a run! I hadn't gone running since Saturday when I finished c25k. And I decided to push myself (uh when do I not?) to see if I could actually run 3 miles today. Which is sort of a half truth? I mean I do a 5 min warm up and cool down? So I walk 10 minutes of that 3 miles but still! 54 mins 51 seconds. Pretty proud that its under 55 mins LOL. And I ran about 2.5 miles of it without stopping. I get about a quarter of a mile walked before I start running. So yeah. under 55 mins :) And I didn't even stop when the stupid bug flew into my eye. Hard to get a bug out and keep running fyi ;)

I also cheated, or was insanely brilliant today. Instead of parking where I normally do, at the busy part of the park, I found the spot close to the 3.5 mile marker, which is usually where I turn around. I started there today and ran down to the 2.0 mile marker, and then back of course. The best part is that I got to walk up the insane little hill before I started running. Then I got to stop right before it and walk back down for my cool down. Brilliant? I think so! Although it's kinda hard to actually walk down it without jogging, so next time I think I am actually gonna just start walking after I make it down the hill. But I liked starting at the non busy part of the park. And it's actually just right up the street from my work, so it's a shorter drive to get there, so I can start my workout sooner! Yeah!

And today I only ran with the mapmyrun app, instead of the c25k one, and I got it figured out to only talk to me in 5 minute increments. That made me a happy little runner. Although I need to get on my itunes and make a decent running playlist. That might help me increase my speed ;)

Finished what I started.

Major accomplishment today!! I finished my C25K program!!!

I am insanely proud of myself right now. I started this 8 weeks ago with the intention of finishing it in 8 weeks. And I did! I even made up one run this week. So I technically did 4 runs this week. But I didn't stop, I didn't quit, and I didn't make any excuses to quit or skip ahead. Scratch one thing of my list of things to do :) I loved pushing my body and seeing how far it would go, and finding out how strong I actually am :)

I figured out that my mapmyrun app drives me crazy! LOL. I need to fiddle with the settings again because this time I somehow had it set to tell me every 30 seconds all my stats. I was afraid to mess with it during my run because I didn't want it to stop recording my workout. So once again I dealt with it. I hope it's not something I have to set every time that I want to run. That will get old. I want to set it so that it comes on every 5 minutes. That way I know a good starting time after I warm up and a good cool down point after I stop running.

One of my friends immediately suggested I start training for a 10k now that my 5k training is done. I thought about it for a few minutes. But I really want to get a solid 5k done for several times before I start training for a 10k. Right now with warm up, run, cool down I am getting right at 2.35 miles. That's a 40 minute workout. I am going to do a couple of 30 minutes runs this week and then maybe on Saturday try to run a 5k and see how long it takes me. Last week doing the 12 minute runs 3 times I was able to finish 3 miles in about 53 minutes. But I also had some walking in there. I am very interested in seeing if I can push myself to run the majority of a 5k with a warm up/cool down. The part of park path that I run on to do 3 miles has this amazingly wonderful (*sarcasm*)hill that I have to run down/up. It's pretty killer for me. And I usually looked forward to walking shortly after I made it back up the hill. If I ran a 17 minute mile I am still looking at 51 minutes for 3 miles. I think my next goal would be to try to get a 5k in under 50 minutes. And then under 45 minutes. And then I think when I got to a 40-45 minute 5k that I would want to start training for a 10k. I am in no hurry really to train for things. I am enjoying taking it slow. I haven't had any injuries in doing it this way, and I am looking forward to that staying true for all of my running :)

I think the next thing I want to focus on is getting some strength training in. I did a really good job disciplining myself getting 3 runs in a week. Now I need to work on the other end of it. And do a good job getting disciplined at 2-3 days of cross-training on the bike and getting a good strength training going. All while keeping up my 3 running days too. We are on the downward end of school here, I would like to be at a really great routine by summer to keep it going while school is out. I know when winter hits that I probably won't be running outside as much so I want to be able to keep up working out and just having it be part of my routine.  My initial thought is getting one day of arms and one day of legs and then one day of both maybe? I suppose that one day of just a biking cardio is a different move than the running? I don't know. I will sit and figure it out soon. I've managed to lose 20 without toning, but if I don't start doing it now, I am just going to have lose skin. And that is something that I don't really want right now.

I am feeling very rambly right now! So I think at this point I better stop for the night or I am not going to make any sense here soon ;)

Wednesday Weigh in week 12

Well it was bound to happen. I ended up gaining weight this week. I mean it was only 1.4 pounds. So it's not heartbreaking. But it's definitely a mental challenge now to pick myself up and keep going.

See my pretty toe left over from my pedicure? :0) Yeah. I really need to take that polish off.

Anyways. I was prepared for a gain this week. Over the weekend I didn't get to drink my normal water and I ate out a ton prior to the wedding. Plus I indulged a little bit ;) I'm just glad it wasn't the 3 pounds it had been the first couple of days after the wedding. Back on track! That's all I have to say.

My second 30 minute run is tomorrow. I hope the weather stays non windy for it. It was a little hard running in crazy 30 mile wind gusts. But at least it was in my cool down stage. Awesome. Looks like I will be running in the rain. As long as its not blowing gusts. Geez.

This time change is kicking my butt! I have woken up late the past two mornings. Barely enough time to get myself out of bed before my brothers do. I am hoping tomorrow I will get up in time to enjoy my coffee! I would like to have time to do that in the morning before I start my day.

Last week of Couch to 5k!

I started my last week of C25K today!! Day one of running for 30 minutes without stopping. Did I do a 5k? Nope. But I knew I wouldn't. I did do 2.35 miles with the warm up and cool down :) So that was kind of exciting. It means I am increasing my pace. I used to be able to do 2 miles in 40 minutes. Today it was .35 more. That makes me happy.

On a whim I decided to turn on another app that I had that was for tracking runs. Anyone use www.mapmyrun.com? I downloaded the app and turned it on right before I started to run and much to my surprise a voice came on every minute to tell me that I had run for a minute and how what my distance was and what my pace was and how fast I was running. I was a little irritated with the every minute part. Hopefully I switched it to every 5. But it was really cool to be able to use the GPS and figure out how far I was actually running. My fitbit doesn't tell me truly how far I've gone. Like today the app said 2.35 and the fitbit said almost 4 when I knew I hadn't run that far. So yeah. I will keep using it for sure to see how far I go. But the every minute thing was definitely a bit irritating.

BUT I RAN FOR 30 MINUTES!!!!!

Not that I am excited about that or anything. I have two more runs. Two more runs and I will have finished this program. I think I am more excited about actually starting and finishing it. Without really skipping anything. I didn't jump ahead, but I didn't repeat weeks either. It's an 8 week program and I will have finished it in 8 weeks. The only thing I had to do was reschedule one run. But I still will finish it in the allotted time. That makes me feel good.

So I am not too excited about tomorrows weigh in. The wedding this weekend threw me off badly. I didn't go overboard by any means, but I don't think my body is all that recovered. Like it's 8 and I really would love to be back in bed right now. I did manage to get 8 cups of water in today. So that's good. So I am not expecting a loss tomorrow. Considering this morning was an almost 2 pound gain. But I could be thoroughly surprised tomorrow! I wouldn't say no to that!

A stay home day

Today was a stay home day :) As we like to call it, a day where I don't have to go to work or church :) I took today off of work because 1) we didn't have kids today. It's conference week, so they aren't there. And I had trade time I needed to use. Woo-hoo. I am glad I decided to use it all in one day so I could finally recover from the wedding. I was supposed to get up and get the boys ready for school, but one of them was sick, so my Mom ended up staying home too. Bonus! I got to sleep in! I stayed in bed until after 9. It was glorious :)

So after I ate and let my stomach settle for a while, I went and did my run that I had postponed from Saturday. It ended up starting to be quite windy, but that sort of worked to my advantage. Today was the last interval running that I get to do before I start the last week of just running for 30 minutes. So that means this week I am going to do 4 runs. And I have already mentally prepared myself that I won't be finishing 3 miles in 30 minutes, so I am ok with the drop in mileage :)

But today I finished 3 miles in 53 minutes! I had to look up on sparkpeople how long it took me to run my last 5k. It took me 58 minutes and 39 seconds. Now today I didn't do that last 10th of a mile, but hey. It wouldn't have taken me 5 minutes for sure! I am very impressed than in a year I have managed to cut off 5 minutes of running time. I was passing points earlier in my run today. I got to the spot to where I normally start running and had to walk a little farther before my run started. So I am even getting faster when I walk :) It averaged out to an 18 minute mile today. I was very excited. I had figured for sure I would be slower because of all the crap food I ate this weekend, but my friend who runs told me it was probably because I had more carbs and sugar in me :) So hey. I guess we will see what happens tomorrow when I start my last 3 runs of walking for 5 minutes and running for 30 and walking for 5.

3 more runs and I will have finished this program. Something to cross off of my list! Can't wait!

Unexpected day of rest

The wedding festivities are behind me!! That was a crazy hectic beautiful day yesterday. But after an 18 hour day of getting ready and celebrating, I woke up this morning barely able to walk. I had worn flip flops all day yesterday. And that obviously was not a good choice. I was supposed to do my last day of couch to 5k training for the week and then do our monthly grocery shopping with my sister today.

I ended up going to bed after midnight, so I made myself stay in bed until right after 9 this morning. My sister was ready to go shopping at 10, so I very sadly got ready while still limping along. I took some ibuprofen and put on some real shoes and off we went. 6 stores in 5 hours. ohmygosh. I came home and put the groceries away and finally made my coffee for the day. I was out of syrup. That was one of our stops for today.

I ended up not doing my run for today. I was so exhausted that I knew I physically wouldn't be able to handle it. Plus it was windy again today. I really should have thought this week through a little more and got my run in earlier in the week. But I don't know when. It's not like I am not going to finish the program. It's only one day that I am pushing it out. I did want to finish it on time though and in the 8 weeks. I might be able to sneak it in tomorrow between all my church meetings. Sundays are very very full for me. But since we have to spring forward tonight I get to have more daylight to finish my runs up. Gosh dang it. I just looked at the weather for tomorrow and its supposed to be windy AGAIN. I am seriously tired of the wind...spring fever is hitting!!

So eating wise this weekend. I admit I did some cheating. Yesterday at the wedding I ate one snickerdoodle, and about 3 rice krispie treat hearts. And a couple of homemade mints. All things I probably shouldn't have had. But all in all, I'd say that wasn't bad for a wedding. But at dinner however. Which ended up being at oh, 11 last night. (I had breakfast...at Denny's). That goshdarn cheesecake was calling my name. So I indulged and had a piece. And it was yummy. My stomach did however not like me today. It was a bit gassier than normal and actually was hurting while I was doing some shopping. But that also could have been because I didn't eat a whole lot before we left. But I had a huge headache and stomachache when we got to walmart and I had to end up buying a hotdog from subway and eat it before we started shopping. I think I waited too long to eat :( Not good. And then just now, I caved and had a piece of cake from my grandpa's birthday yesterday. Small piece though. Didn't go completely overboard.

So it's back to eating good. I don't know how Wednesday's weigh in will go. I have not stepped on the scale in the last couple of days. I didn't want to look at the number because I knew that I haven't been eating normally. I have had a lot of salt, and not a lot of water. I will take a couple of days to get back into my normal eating routine again and then weigh myself. Why stress myself out when I know my day was off.

Oh I could probably fit my run in on monday if I can't tomorrow. I momentarily forgot I took it off! LOL! That might work. I could do that interval run. Then start my 30 mins of running on Tuesday. I guess I will see how it all plays out :)

I am going to attempt to go to bed early tonight since we have to spring forward an hour. I'm not excited about losing an hour of sleep on my crazy busy weekend. But it's not really my choice huh?

Wednesday weigh in week 11

Ok wow! I just so happened to meet a goal this week :) It was my goal to lose 20 pounds before the wedding that I am in on Friday. And as of this morning I have lost 22 pounds :0) Woo-hoo!! Nothing like a bridesmaid dress to make you work a little bit harder ;)

Yep. That's right! 3.2 pounds this week. I honestly don't quite know how it happened but I am not going to argue the point. I am just taking it and moving on.

Also quickly: I started week 7 of Couch to 5K yesterday and ended up doing...almost a 5k. I did 3 miles instead of the 3.1 Which means when I actually go to do one I know I will do it in about 54 minutes ;) Which is definitely faster than the time I did it last year. Woo-hoo once again.

The Wedding festivities start tonight. Hope to post again sometime after Saturday

<3

I did what?

Oh my gosh. I still can't believe I actually did this, but when I got home from doing my C25K run today and checked out my stats on my fitbit, I realized I had done a 17 minute mile.

Ok, so that's like seriously taken about 3 minutes off of my mile!

I started at the 2 mile marker today, and started my 5 minute walk, and by the time I finished my first 12 minute run I had just touched the 3 mile marker. Yeah. I knew I was sooo close so I booked it right at the last two minutes of my run. And I can't really run all that fast. I was definitely a bit wheezy after the run today. So then after turning around after about halfway through my 3 minute walk, I made it back across the 2 mile marker with about a minute to go to the end of my 5 minute walk after my second run. So all in all it was about a 2.25 mile run in 38 minutes. Equals 17 minute mile :0)

And to top it all off it was windy. Not the 45 miles hour gusts like yesterday, but it was pushing me a bit. Which I am sure helped on the way back ;)

I continue to amaze myself with the things that I have been able to accomplish running. I didn't think I could do the program without repeating weeks, but I have. I didn't think I could run a mile that fast. But I DID. I don't even remember how fast I could run a mile. Probably because I didn't run. I always remember a 20 minute mile. But yeah. 17? Am I gonna run that fast every time? I don't know. It was a little on the uncomfortable side while running. But I'm sure it will get easier.

A while back I started on a list of reasons to lose weight. At the time it was 111 reasons because that's how much weight I needed to lose. Of course I haven't come up with that many yet. I think I have right around 40, so I need to get going on that again. Because who knows...maybe I have crossed some things off without even knowing it.

Oh yeah. And I need some goals for March! This upcoming week is going to be crazy. My friend gets married ONE WEEK from tomorrow. And I still have some stuff to do..so forgive me if I don't post a whole lot between now and then. I will of course still post my picture on Wednesday, but I am not making any promises of many other posts :)

Couch to 5K easy run?

I think somewhere I have crossed a line. I have gone from Oh I could never be a runner to Oh that was an easy 12 minute run. 

Um Hello?!?!?!?! Really?

I started week 6 of Couch to 5K today. A 5 minute warm up, 12 minute run, 3 minute walk, 12 minute run, and a 5 minute cool down.

I winced a bit right before the voice told me to start running and said a quick little Jesus Help me prayer. And took off. And I kept going, and going and going ;). And by the time he told me to stop I had run for 12 minutes. I wasn't breathing incredibly hard and it felt good. And I walked for 3 minutes turned around and started over. It was kinda crazy good.

I don't know what has come over me LOL!

I get to do this two more times this week and next week the 12 minute run increases to 3 times. We shall see how easy it becomes then. And the next week is the week I start to run 30 minutes at a time!

But at this point I am not really all that worried. I feel like I have looked the fear of running in the face and told it who was boss. (That would be me, by the way) I am no longer really afraid of running for weight loss, I actually enjoy it a little bit now. I am going to have to come up with some amazing playlist for when I just want to start running without the c25k program telling me when and when not to run. I mean by no means is my 5k going to get done in 30 minutes right now. But in 37 minutes I had done 2 miles and that's pretty stinking good for me!

I texted my friend after my run and told her of my "easy" 12 minutes runs.

It's official. I am a runner...

Once again..

It was one of those days. I'm so glad it's "Friday" and the kids don't come tomorrow. I mean we only had them 3 days this week and two out of three were just crazy! But we seriously are on the downward stretch of school. June will be here before we know it and these next 3ish months will fly by.

So it was FINALLY nice enough to go outside for my run today :) So back to the track I went. I don't know what I am gonna do when the kids start track and take over the track after school. :) I kinda view it as a safe place to run, even if I am running around in circles. It's by a main road and it's not blocked and people can see me. Not like I am running between parks and you have no idea who is around. I know, crazy weird thoughts. But I think those things when I run by myself ya know?

Running outside is much easier than running on the treadmill. Except now I really need to figure out my running stride so I can enter it into my fitbit. Because once again today I crossed two miles as I was finishing up week 5 day 2 (although this day on the app was messed up), but when I got home my fitbit had recorded 2.65 miles. And that was before it fell off of my pants and sat on the ground for almost a whole lap around the track. I was slightly irritated. But very glad that I was at least in an enclosed area and I knew I would be able to find it. Those things cost 100.00 and I really don't have the money to buy a new one. I need new shoes first!

So at any rate the fitbit says my pace was around a 16 minute mile when in reality it was closer to a 20 minute mile which is normal for me. So I ended up running slower today than last week when I did it in the 37 minutes. It's just kind of weird to be running at different paces? You think I would run the same all the time right? I don't know. Just seems weird to me.

I did notice however, that after my run when I was stretching, it was much easier to lift my leg up behind me. I was pretty much touching my behind with the top of my shoe. Which was surprising to me that I could do that. I have been kind of watching my body change, and I think after an almost 20 pound loss, I can say that I am noticing some differences. Which is a big motivator to keep going for sure.

Wednesday Weigh in Week 9

Whew! This week I feel like my body doesn't hate me! Which is a good thing. I was kind of getting a little bit worried. But this week it was 2.6 pounds instead of .08 and that made me happy. :)

Which brings my total of 9 weeks to 18 pounds! Which averages to 2 pounds a week, which is what I wanted to lose. So that actually makes me completely happy to know that no! I am not behind. I am right on track :) I mean like every person I would like to lose more. But I have learned that I don't want to go all Biggest Loser and lose crazy amounts of weight each week. It would not be healthy for me.

This has been a very quick two months. It's gone by much quicker than I thought it would. But doesn't it always? And the cold/rain/snow/wind that we have gotten this week is driving me crazy. I am wanting to get outside to do my runs. And I am waiting for that day when one day a week turns into two days and then three days a week :) I can run in the cold, and the rain, and sometimes the wind. Snow is not something I want to run in. But I have a bike I can cross train on :)

Anyways. I feel much better about the weight loss this week. I am just happy it didn't shoot back up horribly. I mean it did go up .4 but that is not horrible. At least the main number stayed the same ;) I am doing really well exercising the 3 days a week that I am doing C25K but have been lacking the other two that I want to do. I have to figure out how to get that bumped up. But overall I am happy.

Oh! Did I say yesterday that my runs were 8 minutes with a 2 minute walk? Um yeah. I ran for 24 minutes yesterday and walked 6. Plus warm up/cool down. I still walk at a slower pace on the treadmill, and I don't know if I had the fitbit placed wrong or what. But they both said I did less than 2 miles which bums me out. For sure if I was out on the track I would have hit 2 miles.

But I still did it :)

Couch to 5k week 4

Eeeeek! Ok you have no idea how excited I am about my run this morning. So good in fact that I am going to tell you. :) The only bummer of a thing was it was blowing wind about 15-20 miles an hour at times. I mean for real weather?!? Last week it was raining, this week it was windy..next week it better be sunny! Because I don't want to keep wearing all these layers LOL!

Back to the run...

I tend to hit the track on Saturdays so I don't have to invade my grandparents house so early. Well today it wasn't super early, it was close to 9:30. I did let myself sleep in a little today. I got up at 7:00..because well you know, that's sleeping in ;) I had been checking the weather and it said it was going to start being windy around 10-11, so I thought I was going to be safe going early but it was windy when I got up.So week 4 is walk for 5 minutes, run for 4, walk for one (repeat 5 times) and then walk for 5 to cool down. I can generally walk around the track once in 5 minutes, and I have noticed the last couple of times I can go a little farther. So I basically get half a mile done just by warming up and cooling down :)

So at any rate today I crossed two miles right as it was telling me I was done for the day! Meaning as I was running the four minutes I came pretty darn close to running around the track once. I actually did it the first time through, but the next four times I slowed down just a bit. But still today I went from running a 20 minute mile to running an 18 minute mile according to sparkpeople :) Which makes me a happy girl. Now I want to see what it is next week when I am running for 8 minutes at a time!

I still have to figure out my fitbit and my stride though. I know that I did 2 miles at the track because I went around 8 times. And when I got home to check out what the fitbit said I did it said I did two and a half. At a pace of a 14ish minute mile.Which would be all exciting, but I didn't do that LOL!