I'm running!

It's mid-week and late afternoon and, whaaaat? I'm posting? Ha!

The title is correct, I'm running. I'm so excited about this. I've run twice this week so far with one more run planned for the weekend.

Now am I running far? Nope. Just one mile. Am I running fast? Nope, although it feels like it. We are talking slower than a 15-minute mile. Boooo. But, I don't care! I'm running!

Monday an average pace of 15:29. I was hoping for a number in the 14s. There are no other workouts that can compare to a run, especially if you are out-of-shape and overweight. Cheers!

My cat loves being in photos.

 
The day was long and tough at work - and I have a desk job! In all seriousness, I definitely felt that run. I had planned to run again Thursday, but when I looked at the weather, the forecast called for storms. (I fully expect the weather to be perfect now that I rearranged and ran today instead).

My shins and thighs were hurting. But not my feet. NOT MY FEET PEOPLE! I do have some usual plantar fascia pangs, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Last night I did a weight workout for 10 minutes. 8-pound weights. I wanted to prepare my arms for today, but nothing too crazy.

So this morning, my cat woke up at 4:30 a.m. so I was nice and awake for when the alarm went off at five. After a semi-heart attack when I realized I left my earbuds at work (found another pair in the drawer which were even better than my old ones) I proceeded to sit in the driveway four times to fix a rock in my shoe.

Off I went, loving it and so happy until I noticed my watch was showing my pace, but not the GPS tracking wasn't working. What? How will I know I hit a mile? Will this run count if I can't take a picture of my pace? I'm being sarcastic of course, but I was ticked I had run a half mile already.

I decided I needed the stats that bad I would just have to go forth a full mile. So I ended with a mile and a half run. But only the full mile counted on the watch.

I improved 8 seconds. Not much more than two days before, but considering I ran longer I was happy.

 As long as I'm seeing progress, I feel like I can do this.

So, we shall see. And I did lose some weight since my last weigh-in. Since starting the Diet Bet a month ago I lost a total of six pounds, but not enough to make my bet. It still was a lot of fun.

Current weight: 170.5.

Week 6 summary

I sort of alluded in my last post how Week 6 went. It was not productive. Between my stomach and some weird neck thing - oy. I wasn't planning on posting today, but I figure, eh, stay consistent.

I did get up this morning at 5 a.m. without issue to go for a run! It was probably more like a jog (to real runners) because my pace was almost 16-minute mile. The weather was amazing, nice and crisp. I started off way, way too fast. I forgot how far one mile really is. By the mid point of the mile I was out of breath, close to vomiting and thinking WHYYYYY didn't I work harder the last couple of weeks with the dvds?

Good news is I ran the entire mile and my plantar fasciitis prone foot felt pretty good.

Do you ever feel like during a run - nope, I'm done. I'm never doing this again. What's the point? That's how I felt. I laid on the bed, tried to catch my breath, took a shower and hit the turning point. Ok, back at it again. (My mind constantly does this back-and-forth thing)

Tomorrow I have weights planned. Wednesday will be yoga. And Thursday - back out for the mile. It's going to be an extremely slow base-building time. I'm almost too embarrassed to say how long my plan is.

Meantime, I did have a good smoothie - unsweetened almond milk, teaspoon of pb, banana and a handful of strawberries from the strawberry patch. Look at that nice natural pink color!

For fun look at my husband on the slip' n slide in our yard. He got out there with our daughter. He was pretty much the cutest guy who has ever lived. 

I hope everyone has a great week!

 

 

Week 5 summary

I'm late this week reporting on last week's summary. Spoiler alert: Wasn't a good week. Spoiler alert for this week: Also hasn't been a good week.

Hahahaha! So I'm the biggest excuse maker and I have two valid excuses for my lack of workouts.

Last week I was STILL dealing with my stomach being off. It hasn't been fun, but I was finally getting better. Saturday was my daughter's birthday party and we had to go to another birthday party. I was on my feet for about six hours wearing very uncomfortable shoes (should have just worn my tennis shoes). My entire body hurt and when I slept that night I apparently hurt my neck.

Can you have a neck virus? I had swollen lymph nodes, but also pain. It was on one side Sunday then spread to the rest of my neck Monday. My nodes went back to normal and by today (Thursday) my neck feels good as new. I did have pain in my sinuses so I have no idea what went wrong.

See, I can find an excuse in everything. It's something I'm trying to change, but obviously it's a work in progress.

My husband has a sinus thing going on and I am hoping beyond hope I don't get what he has.

My Diet Bet ends Monday and I have lost five pounds, which is great, but I needed to lose seven total. Not sure that will happen. I'm OK with it though because I lost five.

My friend told me about this app, "Plant Nanny." It's so adorable. You are the waterer of the plant of your choice. Each time you drink a cup of water, you water the plant. The plant will continue to grow. If you don't water it, this happens:

Gah I had the wrong picture - edited now.
 

If you water the plant correctly you get this (you add for each glass you drink).

I've got my daughter watering the plant and I'm proud to say we are growing this "Devils' Ivy." He's a happy plant today. Must keep it up.

Food has been about the same. Some good meals, some not-so-good. Here is a chicken caesar salad I had at the cheesesteak place we got to weekly. Believe it or not, these are really good! I did not eat all the croutons, but even if I did, still better than ordering a poboy.

A salad I got for lunch. Strawberry salad with pecans. Delish.

So, my plan is to attempt a run on Monday. #neverskipmonday right? I always sigh at the people who post that hashtag on IG because if you follow them, you'll see they do skip Mondays and you know, that's OK if you skip a Monday. That first day of the week is a drag, no?

Anyway, I'll see how that run goes. To be honest, I'm bored out of my mind of the dvds. I'm ready for Phase 2: start running and on the other days it's weight day. I have a plan from my trainer that is fantastic for weights. More about all that later.

As I'm writing this Prince died. He was a BIG part of my childhood. I hope he didn't die from drugs. It's so cliche. We are all in the newsroom saying, "What????????????" Tears.

Week 4 summary

Last week was yet another adventure. I got a stomach bug, which I think may have been from some lime chili jerky I ate. I'll never eat that stuff again I can tell you that.

It basically had me down for the count three days or so. I had to miss a day of work one of the days. Then it seemed to take several more days for my stomach to feel normal. It's still not completely right, but it's getting there.

So here it is, worst workout week ever:

I also seemed to fall off the wagon with food and workouts. Isn't that how it normally goes? I know there are those out there who let nothing stop them. I'm not one of those soldiers. I was also really run down. While I didn't have a lot of vomiting or the other thing, ahem, I was nauseated. Yet, I dropped a couple of more pounds, which was great for my Diet Bet. But, Saturday and Sunday the wheels came off and I ate more than I should have and gained back two pounds.

So here we are today. Beginning Week 5. It's apparent if I'm not disciplining myself to get up daily and exercise, I don't discipline myself with food. Hmmmm, it's not rocket science, but I think part of being human is we just want to be lazy some days. The problem comes when that is every day (like me).

I try to keep my posts about diet/exercise, but I have my daughter's birthday party coming up. I bought this wooden Barbie sign (her party is Barbie theme). I did all kinds of fun stuff to it and it's going to have glitter all over it. 

We are also redoing her room in a Barbie theme (even though she doesn't play with Barbies - long story), so I'll have this ready for her birthday morning. I also made a Disney princess wreath for her room. I'll post the pics when the projects are completed. Just something fun I like to do - projects. Some turn out good, most turn out so-so.

The next two weekends are filled with three birthday parties and one sprinkle, so I'm going to have to reign it in. Onward and upward!

Week 3 summary

Last week was a doozy. A few days before week 3 started I apparently bruised both my knees. I think this happened while playing board games on the floor with my daughter. Yes, I'm that accident-prone. Two days I did this and I got up off the floor getting on both knees. We have hardwood floors with no carpet. Um, lesson learned!!!

I was pretty worried about if that was the problem or if I injured both knees working out. I'm happy to report my knees are fine. It did take most of last week to get better. Every time I'd get up from a chair my knees would cry out in pain. But I'm ok now.

However, last week was a struggle mentally. Basically I'm over the dvds. LOLOLOL!!! I'm ready to run but even that is going to be a mental war. My problems are: getting up before the sun is even thinking of coming out; fear of injury; self-sabotage; thoughts of is this worth all the pep talks I have to give myself?

In the end the mental energy and physical energy will be worth it. I have a lot going on in my life. Some good, some not-so-good. I'm not any better or worse than everyone else. We all have problems, just different ones. So I'm certainly not looking at this as "oh my life is tough." Hell, everybody's lives are tough. Suck it up buttercup.

Alas, I did actually work out six days last week. What I did was adjust the workouts. I did weights several days. I did yoga. I did ab work one day with a lot of stretching.

The result: lost 2.5 pounds. I'm excited about that because my Diet Bet started last week. My diet - still room for improvement, but getting better.

However, this weekend I had the best, and I mean best, cheat meal ever. There was a retirement party at my work last week. Somebody had the brilliant idea to bring pizza from the most amazing hole-in-the-wall-been-here-for-like-30-years-pizza-place. This place just so happens to be my husband's favorite place so boom, Saturday we made our way to the pink building.

We made that pizza last for several meals and it was awesome.

So, here I am starting Week 4. I hope your weekend was a relaxing and nice.

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!