Week 2 summary

I hope everybody had a good Easter! Mine was pretty fun and tiring. Yesterday I was my usual zombie self when I overbook myself from the day before.

Week 2 went really well as far as workouts.

Monday - Bob Harper dvd
Tuesday - Jillian Michaels dvd
Wednesday - Yoga
Thursday - Bob
Friday - Jillian
Saturday - Yoga

I loveeeee seeing all those yellow boxes which means I worked out!

At some point I'll do a review of these workouts I'm doing. I think they really do help improve your endurance.

My weight is not that great, but what do I expect when there were Easter celebrations and food, food and more food. Last week I let myself eat whatever because of the holiday and I knew today was the first day of my Diet Bet.

Physically I can tell I'm getting stronger, but I've got very sore knees. I haven't been getting enough sleep so I'm dragging.

While I haven't lost weight these two weeks, I've been able to experiment and see what I need to improve on. Food and more sleep. I need a LOT more sleep. The problem with more sleep means going to bed earlier. I have a few things I need to wrap up for Emily's birthday party, but I HATE the groundhog day cycle.

Have you seen Groundhog, the movie? Bill Murray wakes up every day at the same time doing the same thing (I can't remember the details why). But that's how I feel.

Last week I had to work a bit later each night so then I REALLY felt like I was only going to bed, working out and going to my job.

Nobody has ever claimed this to be "easy."

Saturday morning we went to a Strawberry patch for a playdate. Oh, how my daughter loves the little girl we go with on these playdates. It was adorable seeing the two of them huddled together picking strawberries. It was chilly, then got warm real fast. Springtime in the south ya'll!

I had my first crawfish of the season. My childhood friend came home so we all got together for crawfish. We met her new husband, saw one of my favorite high school friends who is HILARIOUS and hung out with my bestie, also from high school. We pretty much decided everybody we wanted to see from high school was there so no need to go to reunions right? LOL!

Boiling

Cooked

Rich and I went to see the Batman/Superman movie. The reviews have been bad, but I loved it. You won't have Oscar performances in superhero movies, but I loved the plot. Also, Wonder Woman was introduced and I love her already.

The Easter bunny passed and I realized my kid loves tiny shit toys rather than one big toy. The bunny usually brings her books, candy and nail polish/makeup things. Big success this year. I hear some parents buy ipads and such for Easter. Good for them, but that will never happen for my kid. Sorry kid, life is tough.

Our cat loves to insert herself into pictures.

Wednesday happenings

Ok, not much is happening, but I thought it was a fun title. So far this week is going really good with my workouts. I've worked out every day so far.

I'm not struggling as much to get out of bed. I'm also not dreading the workouts the night before. I'm still having a hard time making myself go to sleep at a proper time.

I think I'm making a little, tiny bit of progress in my strength. I'm still modifying a few moves, but my endurance is getting slightly better.

This morning I did yoga for 45 minutes and it was a tad better than last week's yoga sessions.

I still have a long way to go, but I feel like I"m seeing progress.

The flip side is my hunger has doubled compared to last week. Honestly I'm surprised it's taken this long. I need a LOT of work on my diet, but I'm eating plenty of healthy meals. We've had takeout only once this week so far and me and my husband were just exhausted.

This weekend will be a tossup on food because I have a few outings planned.

I'm considering joining my first ever Diet Bet. I'm mainly doing it because my friend has had success with them. Also, it will give me yet another goal to work on. As if I don't have enough already. But I'm almost halfway through "Phase 1" of my training plan, so I need to get my diet better organized.

I've found another great set of podcasts. Runners Connect podcasts are fantastic. Elite runner Tina Muir is the current host. However, she adapts the interviews to include info for beginner runners as well.

Also I tried a new kombucha this week. Very good. Still not as good as the strawberry one, but a close second!

Gingerberry. Cat photobomb to the left.

Hope the rest of your week goes well. Happy Easter if I don't post before then. The good thing about Easter besides the bunny are the hard-boiled eggs! Protein for next week!

Week 1 summary

Well, I finished Week 1. Stats are - worked out six days. Gained 2 pounds.

I can easily explain the 2 pounds. I ate whatever I wanted. My main goal for the week was to simply adjust to the time change and get used to getting up at 4:45 or earlier.

So this week the goal is to keep getting up, work out six days and cut back on the sugar/processed foods. Last night I cooked some of this week's meals and I'm ready.

I don't have pretty pics of food, but this is a nice recipe that makes incredible sweet potato chili. Pretty food pics are in the recipe.

Sweet potato chili

I do have this pic of my spreadsheet with my workouts. I have each workout in a different color. Each day after a workout, I highlight the day in yellow. Really nice to see yellow for that first week.

My workouts:

Monday - Bob Harper dvd
Tuesday - Jillian Michaels dvd
Wednesday - Yoga
Thursday - Bob dvd
Friday - Jillian dvd
Saturday - Yoga

I'm not doing the same workout two times each week. So each day is challenging and is keeping me from being bored.

For the weights in the workouts I used one-pound weights. Today I bumped up the weights to five pounds. Big, big difference.

Hope you had a good week and all is going well in health and fitness!

Happy hump day!

I'm so glad it's the middle of the week! I am trying to write at least a couple of times a week so I don't forget about this blog!

So I don't have many pics of meals because, as usual, I've forgotten to take pics.

I do have this one from the catered lunch we had at work. Once a month they are bringing in lunch for us. This is an outstanding idea. This week was from a local deli/shop. I guess because of St. Patrick's Day we had an Irish lunch. Corned beef (first time having it - delicious), baked chicken, tons of roasted vegetables, rice pilaf. This really made the day lovely.

This time change is a real drag, so I'll give myself a compliment sandwich. One bad thing followed up with a good thing. LOL!
* I could use more healthy meals - although we haven't eaten out and I've actually had healthy meals at work.
* I have worked out three days in a row. This is pretty much awesome for me. I suck at exercise consistency and I think maybe the last time this happened was in October before I got sick?
* I'm drinking a small amount of diet sodas. I swore I would end my soda addiction. I hate the diet drinks so much that I'm about ready to chuck them all together. Mainly I'm trying to keep headaches at bay and take baby steps with this workout thing. THEN tackle the sodas and diet.
* My chest situation is much better. This morning I worked out with no chest pain. I'm very excited about this because it's been a problem. I think the infection meds are working, but I really hate taking them. But I'm seeing progress!

So there we go. I'll try to not post my workouts till after the "week" has finished. I'm sore, but I'm not terribly sore so I don't know if that's good or bad.

I ran out of the Community Coffee Carnival King Cake cups, so I've moved onto this. It's quite delicious and honestly doesn't need much creamer or sugar to make it tasty.

The cute Starbucks cup my coworker gave me for Christmas. She knows I love my Starbucks!

In running news (nope, not running), I've discovered some great podcasts. This is probably more work news rather than running news now that I think about it. But being in the newsroom is great because now I can listen to my earbud as much as I want. I'm a librarian, not reporter.

I've discovered the Hansons Marathon podcast. It's from the guys behind the Hansons Marathon/Half Marathon training plans and books. They are free and cover a variety of topics. Hansons is one of the plans I'd love to follow one day (although I'll never be as hardcore as these folks), but they give great advice.

Getting back on track

This has been a crazy time since I last posted. We've had terrible weather in the south with all the rain and flooding. My home, thankfully, has been fine. We live by a small bayou and the houses that are in the depth of that bayou flood nearly every year. So it's nothing new really, but it makes for an awful situation for them.

Also those who live an hour from me and those in Monroe/Bossier City - so tough and I hope it turns out OK for them eventually. Some have lost everything, and I always count my blessings in times like these. Usually hurricanes are our biggest threat.

As far as my own little tiny corner of the world, I've been doing my best to get over this months-long infection. The medicine my oncologist gave me seems to be working. I'm going to try to cut back on dairy and see if that helps my sinuses as well. I'm not sure I can give up my half cup of milk with my oatmeal though, but I'm going to try. Certainly I can cut back on cheese and my chocolate milk treats.

I've also started to seriously declutter my house in hopes of less stuff = less dust. We gave a lot of stuff away this weekend. Still, so much more to do. But I'm hoping this will help my allergies, and definitely my daughter's allergy situation.

My food has not been "on point." Between just being too exhausted and sick to shop, much less cook, there have been a few takeout meals. But, last night, yay, I cooked some nice meals for this week.

Asparagus for the win!

Cauliflower rice. This is unbelievably easy to make. Trader Joes has the rice already prepared, but I'm more of a Whole Foods girl so I don't go to Trader Joes. The hardest part of making this rice from scratch is dicing that rice when your food processor no longer works.

I also baked some cod but I was too out of it to take a picture. I baked it with cajun seasoning and real lemon juice. Can't wait for supper tonight!

Lunch will be the annual tuna sandwich with vegan brownie from the local Jewish synagogue. My coworker sells these every year and it's always a delicious meal.

Here's my obligatory whine about the time change. What in the world??? Spring is definitely worse than fall. My cat - between the storms, winds, time change she has officially gone psycho. This morning she got up for 4:45, which in "old" time was 3:45. I got up at 5:30 (4:30) to workout. I nearly fell asleep on the way to work.

But I'm ready for this Monday and I've got my workout in. My daughter has to go to daycare because, yet again, school is closed. But she's super happy to see all her friends.

We had a good weekend which included her taking pictures with Easter ducklings. I have a house in tact and getting over my infection. Can't ask for anything more than that!

Starting to feel like my ol' self again

Ahhh, relief. It's coming in small doses and it's a beautiful thing. My oncologist gave me the perfect concoction to get rid of this months' long infection. Although it's not exactly that nice on my stomach. But nonetheless, I can breathe through my nose again, taste food and don't feel like I've got a rock blocking my throat.

Not too much to say in this post because my eating has been less than ideal. No pretty food pictures to show in this post (although most of my food photos are not pretty).

What I have been doing, however, is working on my fitness goals. I used a spreadsheet to map out a plan to get me through the end of 2016. It's doable, but it will take lots of discipline and early, early wakeup calls.

I split it up into three phases so instead of saying omg, I have like 350345923482345 days until Jan. 1, 2017!! I'm splitting the goals into chunks of weeks.

Going old school for the next month with my Bob Harper and Jillian Michael's dvds. I promised myself in 2016 I would at least explore yoga more. So I've included one day a week of yoga for Phase 1.

Phases 2 and 3 both incorporate running into the schedule, assuming running is still a goal of mine by the late spring.

I have no idea if any of my spreadsheet will actually work. I'm notorious for starting off strong, then life gets in the way and I drop the ball. (Lots of sports references there).

But, it's worth a shot!

I'm still alive

Oh wow, the last few days have been, ahhh, interesting. Long story short, my girl kept relapsing from her stomach bug, mix that in with her sinus infection, add to that another relapse of my sinus infection.

We had tiny mounds of Kleenex everywhere in our house. I think, knock on wood, we are getting back to normal.

I started feeling really bad towards the end of last week. I had to take off some days of work to be with my daughter and it was probably a good thing. I was walking around like some snot alien from another planet.

I had already called in for my second round of meds. But those pills did nothing for me. The biggest issue was my sinuses swelled up so much for two days straight even Benadryl couldn't do anything for it. Finally, Saturday I felt like I was becoming normal.

Friday was my 18-year cancer diagnosis anniversary and it wasn't a good one except for lots of snuggles from my daughter.

I decided to enlist the big guns last week and scheduled an appointment with my oncologist. I've had some sort of infection since October. I get better, then I get worse. It's been a never-ending cycle.

I've also had a good amount of chest and back pain the last couple of months. I could never be sure if the pain was from the infection or something more pressing.

Those infections put a real dent in my running plans. I had signed up for several races, including one yesterday. Luckily two of the three were for charity so I didn't feel as guilty for paying for races I couldn't attend.

I decided to talk to my oncologist about my problems. Any cancer survivor knows a trip to the oncologist is a tad on the scary side and raises your paranoia about your body by oh, about 100. It's a nerve-wrecking experience because you just never know what is going to come out of it. More tests? More possible answers? Or, maybe you are just a whackadoo who will be worried about cancer for the rest of your life?

It's not something I talk about IRL except for a select couple of people. This is just one of those things that are private, yet I will touch on it in this blog because I feel like my past cancer is a part of my journey towards accomplishing my fitness goals.

The doc ordered a chest x-ray but feels like, based on my bloodwork, I'm A-OK. Big, big relief. I haven't gotten the results of the x-ray or my mammo from last week, but I'm feeling more positive about things.

This may be helpful for anyone with chronic sinus/chest infections - he said there is a strain of virus that has been going around for months. The problem is a z-pack or augmentin or even the typical antibiotics seem to be resistant to it.

So my hope is I just have not found the correct medicine to kick this thing out of my body. He's giving me a two-week dose and we'll see how that goes. So for the next two weeks, I plan to be as nice to my body as possible.

I don't have any pics except one of my recent eats because I've either been unable to swallow, had no appetite and worst of all ... I had no taste. Wow, not being able to taste food makes a big difference on whether you feel full or not.

I still feel like crap, but I can't put into words how happy I am to at least be able to swallow again without feeling like the roof of my mouth is five times it's normal size.

Alas, here I am today getting back into the real world. We are wrapping up our Girl Scout Cookie campaign. Our troop made "Super Troop" status selling over 3,000 boxes. That was definitely a nice accomplishment met.

I am making plans for how I want to redo my girl's room before her birthday next month.

I've got several sprinkles and birthday parties coming up to attend.

Basically it's a good time to be alive so yay for us being alive!

Today I had oatmeal for breakfast. But for lunch, I treated myself with this salad from the work cafe.

It looks menial and a bit wimpy, but I discovered banana peppers, blue cheese crumbles, olives and purple onions beneath the lettuce and chicken. Oh, happy lunch!