a little rough patch

It's been a little bit of a frustrating time for me and I have to admit that I've been letting it get the best of me this past week. I've been making all kinds of excuses not to work out and slipping back into some bad eating habits. I know from experience that these are dangerous times.

Luckily I'm aware of it and ready to take control before it gets worse. I had a nice relaxing weekend at my moms in the mountains, the temperature has finally gone out of the 90's and I feel a little more like I can pull myself out of this.

As hard as I try I will never understand the way my mind works. I haven't lost a pound in over a month so what does my brain want to do? Give up. I never give up on anything else so what makes this different? I'm even showing some signs of jealousy towards my husband who has lost 20 pounds and is running 4.5 miles at a time. Everyone tells him how good he looks while I nod my head in agreement but can't help thinking how I've done twice as much and eaten half as much without any progress at all. Don't get my wrong I'm SO happy for him but sometimes it's hard to be a cheerleader when I'm feeling this way. My mom said I looked "glowing and healthy" but that's because I've wiped away the top layer of skin with my incessant sweating.

A week (or so) ago I did my 20 minute run and I haven't run since. It was so hard and I didn't feel well after and I think it scared me a little. It may have been the heat that got to me even though I was in the gym. The longer I go the worse it will be so I'm going to do some intervals tomorrow and see how I feel. I've also got my yoga class tomorrow night and I'm really excited to go again. I do see the irony in that I'm complaining about the heat but choose to do yoga in a 105 degree room. It's just so relaxing and if I close my eyes I can pretend I'm at the beach :)

Enough with the whining. It's a new week. Hope everyone has a good one!

I leave you with 2 great dog pictures from my weekend in the mountains.

Ups and ups.

I'm only going to say this once and not dwell on it because I already shed enough tears over it this morning. I GAINED 2 pounds again this week after 8.5 hours of work outs. I wasn't flawless with my eating this week - had Chick Fil A one day and Moe's one day but neither of those should be a problem. Maybe it was the 12-15 hour days of work I put in. The only thing I can think to do is to really start keeping track of calories again. I thought I had that down but I guess not.

In other news, I JUST (about 20 minutes ago) finished my first TWENTY MINUTE RUN. 1.25 miles without stopping. I try to be honest here in my blog and truthfully, it was hell. It was neither enjoyable nor rewarding but now I think it's starting to sink in and I'm quite proud. I'm really looking forward to it getting easier though. Losing some pounds would help (crap... I said I wasn't going to speak of that again!)

Bikram Yoga on Tuesday was fabulous and I can't wait to go back. I was by far the fattest person there but 3 people left and I sailed through it. Someone asked me how I could stand it and I said that there's something so empowering about watching your own sweat pour off you onto the mat. Plus my skin looks awesome from it :) It's an expensive habit but once a week should be okay for the budget for now.

When we were leaving the yoga studio, there was a personal training studio across the hall. There were 2 people working out and they looked absolutely miserable. I wanted to walk in there and say "y'all are never going to get anywhere with that sh*tty attitude!" Of course I would never really say that but today I realized I need to keep practicing what I preach. In good times and in bad.

Have a great weekend everyone.

first day jitters

It was hard to get up this morning for the second day in a row. Yesterday I got up and went back to bed. I needed a morning off but I went for a swim and a 3 mile walk later in the day because I really missed that morning workout.

Today was a struggle again but only because I didn't sleep very well. The dogs were having some sort of power play between their beds and ours which is unusual. I was also nervous about starting week 5 of couch to 5k and even more nervous because tonight I start Bikram yoga again. I promised my sister when I lost 20 pounds I'd go with her and I'm going to keep my promise.

For anyone that doesn't know, Bikram is usually a 90 minute yoga class done in 105 degree room. This is the third thing in the trilogy of activities that helped me to lose 100 pounds before. Running. Body Pump. Bikram Yoga.

Did I mention that after this class tonight I will have spent 2 and a half hours exercising today??

I shouldn't have been nervous about week 5 of C25k. Today was "only" three 5-minute runs so I did week one for the 2nd half hour. I was dripping wet but I felt really strong. Two 8-minute runs tomorrow then the next day will be my first 20 minute run. If I can make it through this I'll have run longer than I ever have.

Lots of firsts this week.

Eating wise still doing really well. I had a little too much dark chocolate and 6 of those damn 2 bite brownies but when I think about what a weekend consisted of before it's huge progress. I've really enjoyed cooking again and it seems both my husband I like my food better than a restaurant so it makes it easy to be really good and not feel deprived of anything. Part of it is falling into a good routine where we BOTH do a ton of prep work on a Sunday to get ready for the week. If you have a significant other, I recommend putting them to work chopping things up even if you are a control freak :) It's ALL about the planning.

So between working 2 jobs, working out, yoga, chiropractor and cooking and shopping for every meal, I have very little time left but I'm okay because I have the energy to deal with all of it from treating myself right. Huge progress people!!

non-scale progress

I've come to the conclusion that there's going to be 1-2 weeks per month that the scale does not cooperate so I'm just going to accept that because I'm a woman, it is what it is. Up 2 pounds for the week. It's all water retention. I still rock so I'm focusing on all the non-scale victories for the week :)

1. All week I have been doing week 4 of couch to 5k. I repeated this week due to my sickness the week before. I found it too easy so I did week one for the second half hour. Every day. Week 5 starts Monday.

2. I made myself take a day off from the gym today after 7 days in a row again. I'm missing it terribly!

3. I have elbows and I think I see my knees.

4. The armrest in my car is now where I rest my arm instead of it being the barrier between my side fat and the passenger seat.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. Tammy, Crys and I are all meeting for a workout then a trip to the farmers market. Can't wait to catch up with my girls!

so this is what they call living...

These are the times I wish I could bottle up all the motivation, pride and sheer joy to save for a crappy day or sell it and make a bazillion dollars so I don't have to work on a holiday. I can already hear the infomercial in my head!

In the past, by the end of a holiday weekend, I was tired and bloated and bitchy about having to "start my diet again tomorrow". This time I enjoyed my holiday weekend in a completely different way as if I was in the body of a different person. I loved every minute of it.

It all kicked off with proper planning. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that as soon as I could smell all the grills in the neighborhood, I would be craving all the foods that are synonymous with an American summer holiday. I was totally prepared and it worked.

Friday night I made a gorgeous 4oz grass fed beef burger on a small whole wheat bun with sweet potato fries and coleslaw with very little mayo. It was perfect if I do say so myself.

Saturday morning I went to Body Pump and was so excited to be back after a week of not going to the gym due to the sickness. I did better than ever before increasing all my weight and managing all but 4 of the lunges. Maybe next time I'll be able to say I did them all. As if that weren't enough, we walked 5 miles round trip to book festival after I got home. I purposely took the route by the Chick-Fil-A so I could stop and have my 300 calorie grilled chicken sandwich to prepare for the onslaught of corn dogs and other fried delights at the festival. After that I had 2 beers which was more than enough to fuel me for the walk home :) I stopped and bought $40 worth of socks at the running store too. Body pump, 5 mile walk, running store. All in one day. Who would have thought.

Saturday night I made very healthy shrimp fajitas for us and the neighbors and ended up overdoing it a little on the guacamole but managed to stick with 2 margaritas. The planned amount! Fajitas are a great way to feel like you are pigging out on mexican food but you have to watch the tortillas. Trader joes has a new small tortilla with 45 calories and 7 grams of fiber. Two is more than enough. They are a Godsend.

Sunday I did just about everything but the work I needed to do but managed a good three mile walk and some serious house cleaning while procrastinating. For some reason I was extra hungry all day so I decided to read to try to keep my mind off of it but of course it's a book involving lots of incredible descriptions of food but I'll save that for another post. We repeated Friday's dinner because It was that good and we already had everything.

This morning, I ran farther outside than I have yet. We did our 3 mile route and I managed more than half of that running. It was REALLY fun and I didn't feel like I was going to die once. A woman driving by gave me a thumbs up. I could have kissed her. Since I've embraced the fat girl running, I don't mind people noticing me. I owe that to Al and his sense of humor about it all.

Tonight is grilled pizzas on pitas from the Farmers Market which was planned because we usually order a pizza at the end of a holiday weekend binge. Not this time suckers :)

My dream about running was not just a one time thing. It's been a recurring dream now and for some reason it's helping me. In my dream I'm running with no consequence. No breathing heavy pain or heavy legs, just the freeing feeling of moving down the road quickly. I have a strange feeling it has something to do with my dad giving me encouragement from above.

I know this is long and probably mostly boring but to sum it all up, I think I now know what it's like to feel alive and I'm not sure I ever did before. I'm seeing everything from a different point of view. My body is changing but my mind has had a total makeover. I saw things in the neighborhood I've never seen in 6 years of living. I WANTED to walk 5 miles on a gorgeous day with my husband instead of watching HGTV and wishing I had the energy to do something. You couldn't pry the smile off my face right now.

Holiday Friday Quickie

Just wanted to drop in to say...
1. I've officially entered the 220's - a new decade for moi!!!
2. I'm not sure who this person is I've become - the one that is planning healthy meals and lots of activity for the long weekend. I even had a dream about running!
3. I hope everyone has a fabulous holiday weekend!!

A new low

It feels so good to be feeling better. It's been a year and a half since I've been sick and I forgot how much it sucked!

The good part? I weighed in a day early and lost 6 pounds this week!! 230 today. 16 pounds in a month (and a day). I can't wait to see the 220's again.

Leave it to me to do this AFTER the challenge ended! I'm still so proud of my friend Crys for winning. She lost 15 pounds in a month while traveling. She's a freaking rock star.

I'm trying not to get too excited about the loss this week because I haven't been exercising and I know I've lost some muscle I've worked so hard to build up. I was going to wait until tomorrow to go back to the gym but I'm considering a lunch time swim today because I miss exercising. To me that attitude is even more important than the pounds lost.

Hope everyone is having a great week!! Long weekend ahead!!!