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.