Healthy You Check In

As I sit here typing this, I'm still sweaty and recovering this morning's run but all I could think about while I was running was getting back and posting here that

I ran 6K this morning!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I'm a little proud of myself. I may not be very fast (it took me about 46 minutes) but I did it. It was just such a beautiful morning outside that I decided not to make my typical trip to the Y, where I've been struggling to stay motivated to run on the gerbil wheel most of us call the treadmill. The 6K really flew by this morning so I've decided that it may be a good idea to mix up my routine and perhaps run outside 2X per week and workout at the Y with other cardio and weights 2X per week. We'll see how that goes.

Anyways, for my run today and for my 5K run on Sunday, I'm awarding myself this shiny new bling:


(Thank you Diana for the awesome new buttons you made!!)

And, due to my loss of 2.2 lbs this week, I get more new bling:



My mantra this month has been "Motivated in May" and it seems to be working!!

1- At the beginning of April I set the goal of losing 10 lbs by Mother's Day. I did it!! Actually I lost 10.8 lbs!
2- Run 5K on Mother's Day without stopping. Done!!
3- Lose 5 lbs by May 21 (that's the day I'm going to see M) I'm at 3.8/5
4- Lose 8 lbs by June 2. That's one month from today and that's on an offical WI day. 3.8/8
5- Get 1200 minutes of cardio this month. 427 so far..
6- Run 3 times a week. Done!!

I look forward to checking in with everyone today!!

Mother's Day Run Update and WI #18

I meant to get on here last night to give my little update about the run but I couldn't find my USB cable to get the pics from my camera. Anyways, first things first. The run was incredible!!!!! Even though I had had an awful sleep the night before (I was waking up every 10-15 minutes, afraid I would sleep in), I woke up and was totally pumped! Baby K and I headed downtown by 8am and my mom and T were going to find their way to a spot along the race route to cheer us on. Baby K and I were a team... she rode along in the jogging stroller and loved every second of it.

I would say that the waiting before the race began was the worst/best part. There were over 13,000 of us down there and becaue I had a stroller, I had to be at the back of the pack (although I did manage to get my way in front of all the people walking). As we waited.... and waited... I felt like such an idiot. The whole realization of what I was doing was overwhelming. I was going to run a REAL 5K! Me?!?! I wasn't worried about the run itself as I've run 5K several times now the last few weeks but the emotions and the excitement of actually being there and doing it was almost too much for me to handle. While the crowd around me was laughing and happy, I was making my feable attempts at holding back the tears. Yes, I was going to do it. I made a goal and I was now prepared to kick it's ass. Part of me also felt a little sad that I was doing it alone (well, except for baby K). I had been trying to get some of my family members to do it with me, but to no avail. Everyone just thought I was crazy. *sigh* Maybe next year.

Anyways.. here we are, inching our way to the start line.. the gun had already gone off at this point and we are almost there!


Here's what I saw when I looked straight up! We were lucky to have perfect running weather!


And looking straight down... hehe notice the bottle - it kept her occupied the entire run!


The run itself was great. The first 10 minutes or so kinda sucked, as the first 10 minutes of any run sucks (for me anyways) and I was trying to get out of the crowds and get by people so I was running faster than my regular pace. But I got into my groove eventually and the run literally flew by! When I was approaching the finish line, I could not believe we were already done!

Here we are right after.


And me and my girls once we finally met up again.


And the best news is that I'm not sore today!! No actually, I have more good news. I'm down 2.2lbs!! Which means that I reached my goal of losing 10 lbs by Mother's Day. So for now, I'm definitely sticking with the Wendie plan. It seems to be working!

Counting down to the big 5K

And I'm so excited!! I went and picked up my race package this morning at the Fitness Fair, which is making it seem so very real. I never in my life would have imagined myself actually doing something like this!!! Even back a few months ago when I first thought of the idea of running this race, I was saying rather jokingly. But I am ready and very excited!!

And just about exciting as all that, I got new running shoes!! The Tech Shop had a bunch of stuff there and I managed to find a great pair of Mizuno runners for more than half price. Never could I imagine paying over $150 for shoes but $80 seemed reasonable, especially since I use them so much now. Hurray!

Anyways, so far the Wendie plan seems to be going well. I ate a few more points yesterday than I was supposed to but I'm okay with that. I may be over by a few today too... but I'll try not to be. The most important thing that I see happening with me doing this is that I am actually tracking EVERYTHING that goes into my mouth. The good, the bad and the really bad. And that my friends, is a victory in and of itself because up until now, I was only semi-tracking... meaning if I ate a bunch of bad stuff, I didn't even bother to try and track it. And peeking at the scale shows me that it's paying off. I'm not sure if my WI last Monday was a fluke or what but by the next day, I was back up 2lbs.. and for the last couple days I've been back down to what I WI at on Monday, and even a little lower. I'm hoping to show a loss of at least 1lb (hopefully 1.4 so I can meet my goal!!) by Monday.

Anywho, I hope all you mommy's out there get truly spoiled tomorrow!! Enjoy your day and give your family some extra hugs (unless they forget all about Mother's Day - then you can tell them off LOL). I just feel so grateful right now for my health, my family, my new man, my new shoes... ahhhh life is good :)

Going to try Wendi...

As I mentioned a few days ago, I thought I might try to mix things up a bit with the Wendie plan.The plan says that you can will shake up your weight loss by not consuming the same amount of points each day but instead following something like this: low, high, low, very high, very low, high and medium high. So, my week will look like this:

Monday: 30 points
Tuesday: 34 points
Wednesday: 29
Thursday: 44
Friday: 28
Saturday: 34
Sunday: 32

Basically you just take your daily points allowance and multiply it by 7, then add your 35 flex points. For me it was 28X7+35=231. I'll see how this goes.. I may have to play with those numbers a little bit to figure out what works best. Basically, I'm just hoping this does something!! I feel like I've been stuck around 230-231lbs forever (well maybe a month anyways). Yes, I did WI with a loss on Monday down to 229.4 but was back up yesterday and today (yes, I weigh myself daily). And there is no reason for me to be up this week at all as I've been 100% OP. So when I get all these kind and glowing comments about how great I'm doing, I don't really feel like it. I feel like a fraud! But in all actuality, I shouldn't just be focused on the scale and the numbers but should spend more time acknowledging the improved health and fitness that I'm experiencing.

On that note, I'm my abs are SORE today! After my workout yesterday I did about 100 different kinds of crunches on the ball. At the time I felt fine and even wondered if I was doing something wrong because I just wasn't feeling it but today, I'm hurting. But it's a good hurt :)

Healthy You Check In

Today is going to be a quickie check in as I'm rushing off to go along with T's preschool class on a field trip.

I had a great workout this morning... I ran 5k in 35:10. My previous quickest time was 35:38 so I'm thinking that was pretty good. With the Mother's Day run less than a week away, my ultimate time goal for it would be anything under 35 min but I've been told that it's not a race you can run very fast at...too many people. So my goal will just be (and has always been) to run the full course - no walking.

Anyways, here's a recap of my May goals. (Woohoo! Motivated in May - my mantra for the month)

1- At the beginning of April I set the goal of losing 10 lbs by Mother's Day. Right now I am at 8.6/10.
2- Run 5K on Mother's Day without stopping.
3- Lose 5 lbs by May 21 (that's the day I'm going to see M) I'm at 1.6/5
4- Lose 8 lbs by June 2. That's one month from today and that's on an offical WI day. 1.6/8
5- Get 1200 minutes of cardio this month. 210 so far..
6- Run 3 times a week. Done!!

That's all for now.. I'm planning on checking out everyone's blogs this evening! Can't wait to see how you all are doing!

Weigh In #17

Very very pleased today...I weighed in with a loss of 1.6lbs! That takes me below the 230 mark!!!! I have no idea when the last time was that I weighed in the 220s.. probably at least 8.5 years ago. So yes, I'm a happy girl today.

My weekend was busy but good.. I made decent food choices but didn't track everything. Today is a new week though and my goal is to make it through, tracking everything. I was thinking today about flex points.. and how I allow myself indulgences (without tracking most times) because "I know I have the FP for them". Mentally for me, FPs seem to be this big buffer that somehow swallow up the extra points that I eat. It's like an excuse for extra treats. I do think though, if FPs are used properly, they are great. But I'm not able to do that. So, I'm going to divide them up and use some daily. Maybe like the Wendi plan? I'm not very familiar with the Wendi method but I'll do some reading up on it and get it figured out. I just think that if they are divied up like that, I won't be able to use them as an excuse. Plus, this works in with my JOLT plan of mixing things up and staying motivated.

My workout today was cut a little short. I biked for 15 and ran for 35 - almost didn't make it though because towards the end, these awful cramps started up... and I had to run to the washroom. Sorry if thats TMI! After that, I felt terrible and decided not to do my 35 on the elliptical and went home instead. Not sure if a bit of a virus is passing through or what... but I hope it's gone soon.

Anyhow, that's all for now.. I'm enjoying blogging from my bed this afternoon as we recently installed a wireless router. I've decided that a bit of a restful afternoon is in order for me today!

I think it's back..

Don't want to jinx myself or anything but both yesterday and today I am feeling great! It really was just an "all of a sudden" thing, which leads me to believe that my lack of mojo was related to hormones. But it's strange because I still haven't gotten TOM (and no, it's completely impossible for me to be pregnant!!!). It seems as though my cycles are getting more and more irregular because I could swear that I should have had it by now. Which leads me to my first goal: keep track of monthly cycle.

So yes... it is May! I wanted badly to post yesterday but ran out of time. The good news is that I got my horrendous work project finished and submitted it.... at 12:36 am last night! If it's at all possible this month, I'm going to try not to take on too many contracts. I need to catch up on some other things this month like registering for school, finding out about financial assistance, seeing a lawyer... etc. Oh, and I'm going to visit my man in a little less than 3 weeks from now! YAY!

There are several goals that I will fail to meet this month if I do not stay on track... thus I have officially decided that the key word for the month of may is MOTIVATION. I am going to put effort into finding new things to motivate myself and I am going to stay motivated all month long. There, I wrote it down. That means it must come to pass (haha! if only it were that simple).

Now on to those goals...
1- At the beginning of April I set the goal of losing 10 lbs by Mother's Day. Right now I am at 7/10.
2- Run 5K on Mother's Day without stopping.
3- Lose 5 lbs by May 21 (that's the day I'm going to see M)
4- Lose 8 lbs by June 2. That's one month from today and that's on an offical WI day.
5- Get 1200 minutes of cardio this month.
6- Run 3 times a week.

There we go. It's all out there for everyone to see... now it's time to get my butt in action!

(Sidenote: Thank you to those who commented the last few days..I don't think I would have re-found my motivation without your help!!!)