Too Hot to Run

I am rethinking this whole half marathon idea. Not that I'm going to chicken out our anything. I just knew eventually I needed to actually run on the road and not on the treadmill. I have to say that the treadmill has been great to keep up a specific pace and to train me to keep that pace. But I don't like to run on an incline and so I always run at a negative number on the treadmill. 

Yesterday it was -slightly- cooler than it had been in weeks past, 89 rather than 95, and I knew I needed to get out on a trail and run. I decided to go to the part where I ran my first 5k. If I run around the lake once its not quite 1.5 miles. I had a 3.5 mile run to do and I thought I would have no problem  with it. The first mile went by and my legs were killing me, my hamstrings were so tight it hurt to move but I stopped to stretch a few times and off I went. About half way through the run at 1.5 miles I knew I wasn't going to make it. I kept talking myself through it, but it was hot, I was hot, there wasn't as much shade around the lake as I thought there would be. I had to pee and my feet were going numb so badly I ended up walking the last half mile. It was miserable. 

I'm not going to give up, just because I've had a couple of really awful runs this week doesn't mean I'm quitting. I have a run on Friday night that is 3.5 miles and I'll go outside for it too. I just hate that I couldn't finish it. 

I was happy that my first mile was right on track with a 15 min mile that I have been training with on the treadmill. So at least something went well! Note to self- next time I'm not going to wear a dark shirt and I may need to invest in some tank tops to run in. I hate my arms and I hate smelling sun screen when I run, but I need so relief if I'm going to be out there! 

DISTANCE	PACE	ELAPSED TIME
1 mi	15:09 min/mi	00:15:08
2 mi	16:35 min/mi	00:16:34
2.8 mi	18:03 min/mi	00:15:17

Those were my splits for the run. Not that great... but it'll get better, I just have to slog through this hot weather. I guess its either run in the freezing cold or run in the heat!

I don't have a pic from running last night, but I do have one from my lunch today! It was an amazing taco salad. I love tacos! For the most part I eat gluten free. White bread is not for me! It gives me heartburn. 

Good news though I didn't gain any weight from this past weekend. Today was my weigh in day and it was exactly the same as last week! Huzzah! I am thrilled about this because I was scared that I was going to gain some weight. Now to keep on track this weekend. I have found that I do best at night with snaking when I do something with my time. So I've been trying to not watch TV because it makes me want to eat.

I'll leave you with this adorable pup picture!

Just a normal weekend... on a yacht!

This weekend was super fun. I got the opportunity to say goodbye to one of my best friends ever.

When I started grad school 3 years ago I met Joli. Her artwork was amazing, she was amazing. When she talked about her work she sounded like she knew exactly what she was talking about and it made sense and as the first month or so went by she became "my person." We bonded over McAlister's sweet tea and gum printing. We had a common person who disliked us both and so I think it brought us together as allies. At the end of my first year I had a great friend and she stayed during my second year of grad school too even though that was her last year as a student.

One of our photo professors left and I got to be Joli's student for a lighting class. THEN I got to TA for her! She has been my lunch buddy, my art friend, confidant, best friend and advisor. I think the word "best friend" is often over used but in this case she really is the best of friends. She understands me and my work sometimes better than I do. Joli is just an amazing person all around. She has taught me so much about art its not even funny. She is still one of my people and I honestly don't want to see her go. BUT she is moving to teach at my undergrad which is just flat amazing. Joli is like a second mom. If I could have another mom (plus she is too young to be my mom(sorry mom!)) without having to be birthed twice (or all that divorce stuff) she would be the other person. You know sometimes there are just people who make your soul happy and she is one of my soul mates. I'm not sure how I would have gotten through these past two years without her. I'm pretty sure she loves me too and I couldn't be more proud of and proud to know this stunning person.

She invited me to Both of her going away parties. The first one on Friday was the Restaurant Cotton, which is hands down one of my favorite places to eat in Monroe. I wish I could teleport it everywhere I go in life. Its so dang good! I totally over ate that night but I figured it would be okay because I was going to workout.

Saturday was an evening (and dinner) trip on a yacht. OMGeeeee it was so dang awesome! I haven't ever been on a yacht, despite this, it was fantastically amazing. It was 3 stories and had like 3 bedrooms, two baths a kitchen a living room and then so many cool places just to sit and hang out. We went on a trip up and down part of the Ouchita river. We stopped at a marina and I did pickle shots. It was a shot of crown followed by a shot of pickle juice. Yeah sounds disgusting but it was amazing. Totally over ate that night as well. Probably drank too much too, but c'est la vie! The boat was awesome and so was the company!

Sunday I felt like total shit and I had a 4 mile run to get through. On Saturday I had run two miles and then I swam for half an hour. My legs were so tired from the swimming that I got through two miles on Sunday and just had to stop because my whole body was like "F-U! We are done!" so I got off the treadmill (treadmill for a 4 miler because I was too tired to get up early and run outside) and just went home. I was going to get up this morning and run the 4 miles but today is my rest day and I need it. I really wasn't even going to do anything on Sunday but I felt guilty for not doing at least something. I should have just gone swimming and called it a day because those two miles yesterday hurt physically and mentally. I hate giving up but I went as far as I could go!

I have been wanting to get up early and run but I'm never sure how long its going to take me to get ready and honestly getting up at like 4 in the morning just doesn't sound all that fun to me. But if I want to run outside I may need to start getting up that early so that its cooler... but its really not that much cooler. I got up at 5:30 this morning and walked outside with the dog and the humidity slapped me upside the face and a horrible way.

I am starting to totally dislike the treadmill because its so boring!

Also, I wasn't very honest with Weight Watchers this week. I tried to count Saturday night but just gave up. I know I'm over every extra point for the week. No more activity or weekly to spend I just ate too much. I'm scared of what the scale is going to say on Wednesday even if I am rehydrated by then. I'm never going to lose weight at this point. I workout all week long and just sabotage myself by eating things I shouldn't. I've come to the conclusion that you can't lose weight and eat out during the week. Last week I was swimming in extra activity points, this week? Not so much! I guess we'll see if I can eat activity points and still lose weight, which is something that I have been curious about.

I keep reading blogs about it and some people say yes eat the points you earn and some people say they can't because they will lose weight. I'm also curious how this week of eating every point I can possibly earn will go for me.

Good Morning Good Morning

I feel like I have a ton of things to say and I'm not sure how to start this blog because everything is crowding in my head and it just needs to get out!

My summer is almost over, which is depressing because I am dreading going back to school in the fall. D.R.E.A.D.I.N.G...... it. I love my job, I like where I am right now and I just don't want to have to go back to feeling mediocre at something. Oh well though, I've already spent too much time in this so I'm going to see it out... which is what I tell myself every time someone mentions school. I can do one more year... I can do one more year...

I started doing the training for the half marathon and this morning I was looking at other plans and thinking that I'm not running enough mileage right now. I've never gone over 4 miles before so I'm constantly wondering if this is something that I can do. Is this a mistake. It is a huge fear of mine that I'll pay for this half marathon and realize after I try to run 5 miles that I can't do it. Then where will I be?

Another problem that I'm having is that when I run for a while either or both of my feet will go numb. I'm not sure if thats because of my weight or because of my shoes or what. I am just going to keep going with it. I've found that if I stop and stretch my hamstrings it helps. Not sure if its the hamstrings or just the stopping for a moment.

I've been doing most of my runs on the tread mill which is not that great really but its so dang hot here in Louisiana that I really don't want to go outside to run. I had to pick the hottest time of the year to start running I guess!

I did a 3 mile run on Tuesday and I ran the whole time at a 15 minutes a mile which isn't that great, but I did it consistently the whole time without walking and I think that that is fantastic. I've got another 3 miles tonight and I'm looking forward to see if I can do it again. I may try to do it outside if its not too hot.

Me after a run walking to my car in the rain!

I've also been trying to watch my portions during the week. Its REALLY hard to eat out and count points. I try my best but this weekend is going to be hard because I have a big dinner to go to on Friday and a Yacht trip to a marina to eat dinner on Saturday. I used up a lot of my points last night on the margarita I drank. In hindsight it probably wasn't a good choice.

I'm still not sure if I can eat my daily and weekly points and still lose weight. Last week I ate my weekly and lost. But I had like 55 points from activity that I didn't even touch. Mostly because I felt like I was eating a ton of stuff already and just wasn't hungry for more food. But this week will be interesting because I have the things this weekend where I KNOW I'll eat more than I probably should. Its nice going into the Friday party because I know where we are eating and what I can have to eat.

I've also been eating waaaay less bread. If I do eat it I try to eat only half the sandwich or if its a burger I just don't get the buns. I hardly ever eat crackers or toast or cereal anymore. Sometimes when I haven't had bread for a few days I will eat it and my stomach gets upset! Wild huh? I know I don't have an allergy to it, I just made this choice to try to fill my meals with healthier foods like veggies or good carbs like sweet potatoes. I made whipped sweet potatoes and they were amazing!

I know this is a super long post. But I've been meaning to post about this stuff just haven't had time lately.

Monday Funday

Today is a good day!

I was late for work (by 5 min), the lady at the gas station was a total bitch when my card wouldn't read outside, all the men at work are in a mood today, we are short handed at work too. You would think that this would put me in a bad mood, but for some reason I feel very optimistic. I'm excited that tomorrow starts my half marathon training.

I even got Courtney, my office buddy to do it too! We'll see if she does but I'm excited because tomorrow I'm starting off with a walk/run of 2 miles. It doesn't jump past 3 miles until the end of the 4th week. So I have a month to get used to where I can run three miles. One running plan I came across said that to do a half you have to be able to run 3 right from the gate, and this one didn't say that. If I get back into the running swing of things I think I can do 3 miles running in a month.

Last week I said that I started weight watchers and so far its been going good. Saturday I went to the farmers market where I bought an over-ripe watermelon (that didn't get eaten because it was mushy), quart of blueberries, two kinds of tomatoes (yellow and green), some UFO shaped squash and bison bacon burgers (YES AND THEY ARE AMAZING) and one blueberry muffin.

I'll confess I ate the muffin for breakfast. I had planned on eating one of the burgers for lunch and some tortilla chips with it and blueberries and salsa. Yeah I just can't keep chips of any kind in the house unless its a (see 1) single serving bag. I just pig out on them. Chips are my weakness. I ate a whole bag on Saturday plus all but one of the burgers which I split between dinner and lunch. Yeah ate way too much. I wasn't going to count the points but I grudgingly did it because I paid for the damn program so I might as well be honest with it. After all, I'm the only one judging myself because I'm the only one that can see it. It was way too many points for comfort, I used up all of my weekly points and some of my activity points. Now I have to be good until Wednesday when I get more weekly points. I guess its good that I ate them though because in the past I didn't, and I know that they are there to be eaten.

How you lose weight and eat all this food is beyond me! Free points for fruit, 42 extra points to eat during the week and any activity you earn too. Should you eat activity points? I don't know?

Sunday was much better, I ate my three meals and didn't really feel hungry for much else during the day.

Tonight my plan is to take the dog out and run/walk a mile. That's it just a mile. I want to do something to get myself going for the week. I also need to mow the lawn...

Funny story. So it has been raining constantly for the past month or two and every time I go to mow the lawn it rains. My yard is a jungle! Some of the grasses are not quite to my knees. Part of this is me being lazy, the other part is that I'm not home much and when I am I don't want to mow. Well... my landlord got a notice from the city saying that the yard needed to be mowed. Yeah. So I race home from work on Friday to make sure that the city didn't go and mow the lawn, because the notice was dated from the 16, and my landlady was out of town so it got forwarded to her vacation address... so I was going to have to pay like 400 if the city did it. Well luckily the city doesn't work on the weekends nor in the rain and it was raining on Friday again. First thing Saturday morning I got up and got the weed eater going and I got about 10 min and the battery went out.

The other battery doesn't work at all. I get like 2 minutes on it. I wonder if its the charger... anyway it looks like someone went out with a big pair of scissors and just started chopping randomly around the yard...  I knew I only had a little while so I wanted to get as much of the yard as I could! Its funny but not. So tonight I HAVE to mow the lawn. That comes first, then maybe I'll go out for a walk with the dog.

Summer Daze

As I stare at this blank blog with the little flashing thingie that moves when I type I'm kinda at a loss. Even though on the way to work this morning I said I would write a blog post today.

Kinda at a loss describes my whole life (except the weight loss part) I'm between school quarters, my husband is traveling, I don't know what to do next and I dread dread dread going back to school in the fall. I got a job, and it was supposed to only be for the summer... and now I don't want to leave. Like so many things in my life I'm faced with school which I have sunk two years, a lot of money, heart ache and tears into with the fact that I don't want to go back. I love my job. I really do. I work for a franchise and I get to take pictures, be creative, organize and do office work. Is it what I went to college for? No. Do I still love it? Yes.

So that's where things stand. I'll go to school in the fall, mainly because I committed to doing it and its not something that will be easily picked up again someplace else, and also I just want to be done. One more year... thats my mantra right now... One more year.

In all of this I've not lost a single pound. I always have great intentions. Somehow they always fall through. I'm not going to lie I feel disgusting. I remember last year going into August I felt great and I sure do wish now I had just kept going. But thats the weight loss story of my life!

Not to be a downer today. That wasn't my original intension. I'm back to Weight Watchers I think. I always seem to have some kind of success with it, even if they are robbing me of my money. I am also kinda between workouts. My coworker bought Insanity and I said I would do it with her. I like the calorie burn for only 40 minutes, but it hurts me. My joints hurt and I'm terrified that I'm going to hurt my knees to where I can't do anything at all because of all the jumping and stuff. I don't mind being muscle sore, but I sure don't want to be joint sore because I did something to myself. I also don't want to be a pussy about it. I know there is some pain in this, but I don't want to really get hurt!

I was snooping on someone's Facebook this morning and saw that they liked a page for The Dirty South Marathon. I can't run a marathon yet and I have only ever run 1 5k, no 10ks or anything even though I can bike a 10k. But when I started reading about it I was like... how cool would it be to be able to run a half marathon? What is stopping me from trying? So I looked up a running schedule. I haven't run all summer, but I was running when I was in school. One of the schedules I found was for 14 weeks. This marathon is 15 weeks away. It occurred to me that I could do this! I don't have much time but I think I could make time to do this. I work 7-5 everyday and have 30 minute commute to work and back each way. It makes for a really long day.

I have a hard time getting up at 5:30 am for work, so I don't know if I could get up earlier to run. I don't want to give all my evenings away, but if its the only option I have, I guess I'll be eating dinner later than I want and not having free time. Maybe I just need to lose the mindset that I'll have a lot of free time and think that the running is my free time and that I should enjoy it. I spent a lot of time last summer at the gym, but I haven't wanted to go this summer, but I don't lose weight unless I'm exercising.

I'm going to look at the half marathon training more today and see if this is something I really want to do. But I think I'm going to do it. Screw my own excuses. I can do this :D

A Good Place

I was working out last night and thought about my blog. I haven't thought about it in months. Obviously because I haven't written anything in about 2 months. Sadly I forgot my headphones while I was pumping iron (haha lame) and running so I had nothing to drown out my thoughts.

I would say that at the end of April I was in a really really bad place mentally, right around Easter actually. Some personal stuff happened and school was its normal hard self and I kinda just lost it and didn't want to do jack shit. But I pulled myself together, starting by eating better and working out regularly. One of my friends Cat, asked me if I wanted to start lifting weights and while I would rather do cardio I thought it would be great to have an someone who knew what she was doing with weights and was willing to go to the gym with me. So I said yes. I was already running and doing Zumba when I could fit it in.

When I decided to workout with Cat I committed to doing 4 days in the gym. We go on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday and I run/zumba on either Monday or Friday. I did Zumba this week! It was great! I also run on the weight days too, but my goal has been to consistently run a mile at a time without stopping rather than running in 2-5 min batches and slowing down. I put it on a speed I can handle running slowly and just run for 15 minutes which usually gets me to a mile. Then I do it again!

I also started doing the Paleo thing. If you don't know what that is, its basically the caveman diet where you eat more meat, you don't eat gluten/grains/breads, dairy or processed sugar (only natural). I always scoffed at people who ate this way. Why would anyone want to do this?! Who wants to give up that much stuff out of your diet... I know all my favorite things are in those three categories! But I decided to do it for a month. Hell, I can do anything for a month and if it goes well I'll stay with it longer.

I'm not saying I have been perfect, because I haven't. My birthday was during my second week, and my students brought me cupcakes, so I ate two of them (they were mini cupcakes... geeze... don't judge!) And one night I went and had some much needed mexican food with margaritas with my friends. But for the most part I've been a good Paelo girl. AND I LOVE IT!!!

How weird is that? Of all the things that I have done to lose weigh this is something I can see myself doing forever. I eat lots of stuff, I'm never hungry. I don't know that I eat more meat now than I did before. Mostly I try to eat 4-6 oz of meat with each meal and I eat a ton of veggies and fruit. I can still have my fave smoothies with almond butter, I can still eat watermelon, and there are surprisingly a lot of recipes out there for goodies and treats that are Paleo. Last week I made banana bread muffins and this week I made three batches of blueberry bread. Don't even ask me if I ate all that damn blueberry bread. The first batch got eaten over a whole weekend... again don't judge me! The other two I eat with breakfast and as an afternoon snack. They have a ton of fat from being made with nuts. But that's cool cuz Paleo lets you eat more fat.

I'm moving toward the end of my third week and I've lost 13 pounds... yup 13. I feel like I haven't lost any weight. But I'm less concerned about the weight and more concerned with how I feel physically and mentally.

Some plus sides to Paleo:

I fart less.... haha yeah I went there
I don't have heart burn anymore
I sleep better
I get to try out crazy recipes that probably won't work but then do
Bacon....

Anyway back to what I was thinking when I was working out. The down sides to this are that I have a new job (thats not a downside! thats a perk!) so I have even less time for my friends (and my puppy), and when they want to hang out I need to go to the gym to workout. I keep asking them to come with me, but there are only so many times that you can get stood up before you stop asking. Some of them are cool with this, we see eachother sometimes at school and they love me (and I love them) no matter what. With others they are mad, maybe because I'm working out an they aren't? that I'm not spending time with them. So maybe I need to make gym friends? I don't know. I just know that this is what is making this harder. I work all day (or school all day) then workout, come home eat dinner and work on school work or relax and I go to bed by 10:30!! Yeah you read that right! I'm often super tired by 9! I get up for work at 5.

Sorry for the SUPER long post today. Its just been a crazy few months and I'm just now getting into a good workout schedule so I thought I would post about it!

Yay Paleo, Yay new job, Yay better body! I'm super excited to see what this summer is going to be like!

Health is Wealth

In the past I've used weight watchers as my go-to choice for counting calories/points fungus (or funds before my fingers mistyped..ha!) are tight right now so I'm using my fitness pal. The only problem with MFP is that they give you weird amounts of calories. When I signed up I got 1700 calories to eat in a day. I know that something is wonky with that because I've been this weight on WW and gotten a lot of points, more than I thought I could eat in a day. Also, when I used the arm band thing to count calories it was telling me waaaay more than 1700. 

But I thought its MFP they can't be that off, and so I ate 1700 calories for a week. I'm not saying that I was starving but I was tired (more than usual) irritable and actually gained weight that week! So by the end of the week I knew something was horribly wrong and it wasn't me, I was eating 3 healthy meals a day along with snacks and tons of water plus running almost every day because I was getting ready for that race. 

Well I said something to my mom about this and she thought that 1700 seemed weird so last weekend I looked up every calorie calculator that I could find on the internet and they were all pretty much in the same ball park 2130 to 2200 calories so I picked 2150 because it was somewhere between the two that I was getting. The first couple of days it was hard to make myself eat that much more food, fitting in 400 more calories sounds like it would be easy but most of my meals I had made with the 1700 in mind and I felt like I was eating a TON more food. But lo and behold about Wednesday I started to see the weight just fall off. I don't know what it was, maybe just water weight but I've lost 4 pounds (probably water weight my body didn't want to get rid of because I was starving it) in the past week. 

I don't feel as tired (any more than normal) I'm actually getting better sleep now, I'm not as grouchy and my tummy feels full at meals, which is nice. A lot of the calories I added in were half a serving more of the soup I made or eating more veggies with dinner and lunch or being able to fit in a snack in the afternoon (usually air popped pop corn) or a cup of coffee with creamer (yum!) in the morning or a beer or some chocolate as a treat at the end of the day! Its nice to be able to fit that into my food. And I know from WW that if I go over, it won't be the end of the day, yesterday I went over my calories and I still lost weight. WW gives you 7+ points a day or 47 to spend however you want plus any activity you earn, so I know that I'm going to be just fine if I do go over or there is something that I REALLY want to eat when I go out with my husband.

I'm also reminded that I have to eat to lose weight! You can't starve yourself! And also that the most important thing for me isn't the scale, its being healthy and I think thats something that all people who are losing weight struggle with, yes we want to be skinny and thin but ultimately I want to be as healthy as possible.

The other night I was talking to Corey and he said the sweetest thing that in all these years of trying to lose weight he never said, he told me that he didn't care if I was thin or not, just that I was healthy. He said that he loved me no matter what my size was, if I was a bigger person who was healthy and worked out and ate right then he would be just as happy as if I was a thin person and did the same thing. Talk about cool! 

Race Report

I'm so happy that I did this 5k race. I've done a virtual 5k and I did another 5k when I was in undergrad (which I don't count because it was such a crummy experience) so really this is the first one I've done where I have felt like I really achieved something. I had picked up running last summer but got off track when we went to Dragon Con and then I started school almost immediately.

When my friend Marguerite told me about this race and she needed someone to sign up under her name I knew I could do it, even if I couldn't run a whole mile yet or really for more than 2 minutes at a time. I mean the worst thing I told myself was that one- I would be the very last to finish (which at least I would have done something!) and two that I wouldn't be able to do it and cop out of the race halfway through.

I had been practicing outside during the afternoons and on the treadmill at the gym but nothing prepared me for the amount of hills in this race! Predictably I was near the end of the race pace wise, I knew I would be, but that didn't stop me from going. I was taking to a lady during the race who was walking (faster than I was walking when I stopped running) who said she thought that this was where they hid all the hills in northern Louisiana! Ha!

I ended up forgetting to start my run tracker that keeps track of my pace on my phone, apparently I was so keyed up I forgot to press start! Haha! But I ended up finishing in less than an hour, I think 51 minutes? I asked my mom, who had come down to see one of my art gallery openings what the time was when I saw her and Corey halfway through the race and told her I forgot to start my timer so she kept track of it for me. I was doing about 45 minutes for 3.1 miles during training but I was way earlier than I was used to being up, way hillier than I had trained for and kinda cold, which I wasn't expecting. So all in all I think I did okay!

Corey and my mom had come to visit and when I saw them at the end of the finish line cheering me on I almost started crying right then, thankfully I was able to keep from crying at all even when I stopped at the end. I can't tell you the amount of pride I have in myself for even completing this. I feel like I start so many things and am never able to finish and see it to the end, but with this I was and I did!

I'm not the fastest person in the world but at least I'm one more person that is doing something about that!

Marguerite and I after the race! I look all grungy but very happy!

A Windy Run

So I started back at the running thing, mainly because I really enjoy it. I like classes I can take at the gym but there is something about just getting out in the world and going someplace with your legs.

It also gives me time to think, or not think about anything at all that is important. Which is nice, at least an hour of my day is spent not thinking about stressful things. At the end of last summer in August I could run a 5k in 30 minutes without stopping on a treadmill. Then I stopped. Now that I've picked it up I can run/walk a 5k in 42 minutes and I go outside to do it. On Monday I ran and thought that I would be faster on the treadmill... well that wasn't the case. I went a little over 3 miles on Monday and it took me a whole hour. Today with my hour I got in 4 miles. 4 miles. Can you believe that? I didn't run the whole thing but I don't think that matters.

Anyway, today was perfect. It was a cloudless sky, in the 60s and the sun was very sunny. I knew that it would be a total waste to go to the treadmill, even though I think doing walking/running intervals on that makes me a lot faster. So I went down to the stadium where I like to run and ran. I realized pretty quickly into the run that it was SUPER windy which felt great because I didn't get sweaty too much but its hard to run into the wind! I also realized that it was SUPER sunny and I wish I had put some sun screen on my face! Now I'm the proud owner of a nice pink sunburn that is giving me a headache and making me down water like I'm dying of thirst!

I can't get the exact splits for each mile without buying the mapmyrun app, which I have thought about doing just because it would be nice to upgrade and get all the info for my runs, but the first mile I did was 13ish minutes. Thats not a bad mile! The rest I eventually gained a minute each time so by the end I was at a 15 minute mile.

I'm kinda worried about the 5k time because I don't want to be super slow because- pause for effect- I'm running/walking a 5k on Saturday! One of my friends needed people to signup for her sorority run so I'm going to help her out and get an early workout in on Saturday morning! Today the 5k was 43 minutes so I guess thats not too horrible! Not for having been doing this for about 2 weeks now. I'm just glad that I'm running again. I feel much better and I'm ready to get healthy and feel good about myself again.

Trying to make good choices

I think that one of the hardest things about any kind of decision is the decision to keep going. Every time I fail, and if you have read this blog, I fail often! But mostly those failures have to do with the decision I make to not keep going. I get happy or complacent and all the good intentions I have fly out the window. Its beyond frustrating to know this about yourself, and want to change it but keep making the same mistakes.

Even the littlest decisions can throw you off balance. Right now as it stands I haven't lost any weight and I'm pretty much where I was when I started losing weight last summer. I'm not going to lie there are some days where I'm so utterly stressed out and don't get home until some absurd hour of the night because of school. But I think that if I can just fit one hour into my day where I can exercise then I will feel better even on the days when I'm the busiest. So even though I'm trying to make better decisions and be healthier, my biggest decision right now is to keep eating the best I can day to day and to workout for a hour at least 4 times a week.

I would love to do more, but I think that to commit myself to more than that right now would just add more stress to my life at the moment. Stay tuned for more blogging as I struggle though this.

Clean Eating and Confessions

Time for the broken record part of this post. I hate saying that I wasn't able to do something but working out for 100 days kind of fell short when I started getting super busy with school. Sad but true. My mom told me yesterday that she was worried because the blog posts had stopped. Well I was eating fine and working out for about a week and I got busy with school, but was still eating fine, until I was staying up really late and would over eat to compensate for not having slept and I gained weight. Then I just threw everything to the wind for a week or more. Now, I'm feeling disgusting and wanting to get back at it. 

Eating is my main problem. I don't have time to cook, and so I end up eating whatever I have in the house, which is usually something I picked up from the grocery store when I was hungry. I can generally find time to workout if I make myself, but the eating healthy is harder for me. I know once I start eating healthy the cravings for bad stuff will go away, but I just have to get a couple of weeks into healthy eating. The second thing that makes it hard to eat healthy is when I'm with my husband or back at home in Arkansas because I go out to eat. 

One of my friends makes all her and her husbands lunches during the weekend for the week ahead. I'm only one person so generally one big meal lasts me all week long. I decided to eat clean for a week, which means avoiding processed and refined foods. Basically whole wheat if its going to be bread/pasts, no sugar unless its natural and lots of fruits and veggies and concentrating on whole foods. I'm making all my meals today and that way I can just pick which one I want to eat and pull it out of the fridge. I've made 4 meals for this week, breakfast casserole, steak carnitas, chicken pasta dish with veggies and homemade granola. I'm also a big smoothie drinker, especially after workouts and my favorite is spinach, banana, strawberries and water and its surprisingly filling. I figure this will help me to eat consistently healthy during the week, will keep me away from snaking at night, which is killer and it will get rid of me hunting for stuff to snack on as well. 

I'm really excited about the carnitas! I love a good mexican dish. I have corn tortillas and I'm going to make salsa and chop up some cooked veggies to go with it. One of my favorite go to dishes for just about every home cooked meal is zucchini and squash sautéed or steamed broccoli and carrots. I'm just glad to be getting back to eating well. I always feel disgusting when I don't. 

So far I've made the granola and the breakfast casserole which I put in muffin tins to make individual servings. It has cheese (this is iffy on the clean scale, but I'm not eating much of it, less than an ounce per serving), eggs, potatoes, veggies and turkey sausage (drained of fat). I made 24 and two are less than 150 calories with tons of protein to get me through the morning. The granola is a replacement for sugar cereal that I like to have for breakfast. It is really good, made with honey and cinnamon for flavoring. It is high in fat, and has a lot of calories so when I eat it I won't eat a lot of it, but thankfully its really filling. 

I just thought an update was in order! I'll share the recipes soon, I got all of them from another blog called blessthismessplease.com and last night I made whole wheat pizza crust, not from this site and it was excellent. I only used half of the recipe and it made a decent sized pizza. I think some of the best things I find make me happy because I get to play around and make them how I want.  My goal for the blog this week is to share the recipes and to update on how the clean eating is going! Head over to Bless This Mess if you want the recipes now, or you can check them out here later in the week!

Day 5- Loads of Videos

I'm so damn sore today. Sooooooore. My plan was to run… but that didn't really happen because my unnamed friend (Marguerite) wanted to do a different workout and she doesn't like to run… so I sorta ran. We ended up over at the track because I forgot my id to get into the gym, plus she told me that it was full of "new years resolutioners." Which is has been. But it was just verging on being too cold to run comfortably outside. What we ended up doing was 4 sets of 10 lunges per leg, 10 pushups, 10 squats, 10 sit-ups and 10 jumping jacks followed with a walk around the track which is a quarter of a mile. It took about 40-50 minutes and after doing the toning DVD yesterday my arms feel like noodles!

I'm happy that today is day 5, I realize that its only been 5 days but I feel so much better about everything. Its amazing how just a teeny part of your day working out can make you feel so much better about everything.

While Marguerite and I were walking around the track we were talking about some of the goals that we had made for ourselves for the new year, and while I didn't really sit down and write out my resolutions they were just sort of simmering at the back of my mind. I want to start something and finish it. I always start these workout programs and never finish them so maybe thats why I'm so happy about the giveit100 thing. I just want to start something and finish it, see it to the end. I almost always start a new project whether its art or myself and I never follow through because my enthusiasm fails. This blog is a perfect example of that!

My other goal for the year is to try to keep my house clean and keep up with the dishes and vacuuming and over all cleanliness. Its not like the place is trashed or anything, just that when I get busy things fall through the cracks and usually thats the first thing to go. So far it means doing dishes at night and vacuuming every day, but I know that having a clean house means that I'm not in a place that stresses me out so going home to someplace that is nice means that I'm going to just feel better.

The other resolution is to just better myself physically and emotionally and to just get to a place in my life where I'm generally happy. For the most part I'm a positive person. But I just need to learn to love myself better and to feel happier in my own skin.

That's it for now, and you can see the videos that I've been doing too!

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 3-4

So I didn't post this weekend, but I did workout. I have to say after 4 days of this I'm sore. Today is a run day and I'm looking forward to it. I'll head over to the gym after class tonight. On day 3 I did a Turbo Fire HITT workout for 20 minutes and yesterday (Day 4) I did a sculpting class and my legs and arms are killing me today! I've been tracking my food too! AND I lost two pounds last week! Huzzah! But I figured that would happen. I'm back to using My Fitness Pal because I'm broke and can't afford Weight Watchers. But its all good, as long as I'm holding myself accountable thats all that matters to me.

I've been thinking about something and it occurred to me today as I was washing my face and getting ready for class. I'm doing a series of photographs about beauty and how women use beauty products to feel better about themselves and I am showing the aftermath or the not so pretty side of beauty and what it takes to get there.

One of my friends (who shall remain nameless) got on to me for using hand lotion on my face… yeah I had no idea I should be using facial moisturizer. Who knew? I mean I didn't think it would make much of a difference. Well after talking to several of my friends and trying a few things out I got some Clinique and its amazing. It makes my skin feel and look great. I tried some stuff but it made my face hurt so I got their three step program because my face is SUPER dry and now its not at all!

All this comes to what I was thinking about this morning. When I started losing weight in the summer I started going shopping with my friend (the nameless one who has incredible taste in clothes and makeup) and getting cheap clothes that looked great on me and I started to dress better. I realized this morning that it doesn't matter if you lose 40 pound for 400, if you don't love yourself just the way you are, that you'll be unhappy no matter what your size is. Maybe thats not a revelation to you, and in the back of my mind I've always known it. When you don't feel pretty you don't want to look nice, which I think is why I've always hid in jeans and tshirts. I don't like the way I look and I don't feel like I deserve to look nice. Not that I've ever just flat out told myself this, but when I think of the name if this blog "How To Love My Body" I realize that this isn't just about losing weight. It really is about coming to terms with who I am no matter what size I am. And learning to be happy with that is what's important.

Because I do deserve to feel beautiful, I deserve to have a soft face, nice clothes, pretty makeup and to leave the house looking great- no matter what my size is. If you don't feel like you are worth it, and you don't love yourself for who you are right now, its never going to matter how much weight you lose. I can name 10 things I hate about my body right off the top of my head at any time of the day. Could I name 10 things I like about myself? I don't know…just something to think about as you go through your day.

I'll post my two videos later because I have to get to class!

Day 2

I have my new video today. I just wanted to say that I'm writing these blogs a day before and then they go live the next day, so when you read this, I'll be on my third day. So today I REALLY didn't want to get up to go to the gym, so I didn't. I slept, which I think my body needed and I went later in the day. 

Its so weird to me when I really think about it, because for years I hated the idea of going to the gym. Hated it. I would rather work out at home over and over again, but now I would rather go to the gym and just get it done with. Come home and just go on with my day/night. Maybe it doesn't make sense but I just would rather do that. I thought about making out a workout schedule to do every day, but by now I know what I like doing, not that I'm not open to trying new things. I just know I like to get on the treadmill and walk/run. To me thats a fun workout. I don't have to think about anything. I also like Zumba and doing the reclining stationary bike. I enjoy doing the Turbo Fire stuff, especially for yoga and getting a good core and arm workout. So I'm sure I'll be doing all of those too. 

Today we had the third year grad students review of their work (i'm in my second year now) and it went well I think. But my friends wanted to go to eat lunch at Sundown afterwards. I knew I could get a salad, but I just got some nachos instead. They aren't bad except for being covered with cheese. They are chicken! So I decided to just have a green smoothie for dinner instead of something big to hopefully even it out lunch and dinner.

Here I said I wouldn't be writing a lot and I am. I guess old habits die hard! Last thing I want to say is that some of my friends are going vegan. Now, I know you are shaking your head, especially if you have read some of my past posts about my attempts at vegetarianism- and how that was a utter failure. In general I like the idea of not eating meat. I think if I REALLY REALLY applied myself and tried hard I could do the vegan thing. Maybe vegetarianism is harder because you are still tempted by dairy? I don't know. Before I dive into this I'm going to do some more research and try to plan more vegan meals during the week, that way if I do decide to do it, I can just slowly make my way into it rather than just jumping in full blast. I would like to experiment with foods and such and then try it for about 6 months to see if I feel different. 

Anyhow! Here is my video blog for today! 

Giveit100.com

Today starts my journey of 100 days of workouts. I'm not the only one giving 100 days to something. So you should check out giveit100.com and see if this is something YOU would like to do. Its a challenge and I love a good challenge!

The give it 100 website is only 10 seconds of this video, but I challenge every person that reads to jump in. Even if its not working out! It could be making healthy meals or going to bed at 10! Who knows! You can check out my page on giveit100.

Biggest Loser Ever!

Guity. I'm the biggest loser, not for having lost weight, but for not coming back here. So I'm going to start doing this video blogs. Words are much more concise but this is something that I want to do, so I'm sharing it here… 100 days 100 workouts. I can do this ;)