Slow and Steady

I weighed myself this morning. I am down 1.6 pounds this week. I will take that. I was pretty certain that giant crazy losses are beyond me at this point in my life. For a couple reasons in particular, I weigh in the 150’s, which means that weight loss isn’t going to be miraculous. I am already pretty fit as a general whole, i.e., I have a lot more muscle on me that wants to keep my weight higher and finally, I am eating a whole hell of a lot more. If I were going to truly be crazy lose it girl I would go full force into weight watchers but honestly it’s not enough food for me at this point.  Recording my food into My Fitness Pal has shown me that eating between 1200-1400 calories a day pretty consistently would be MANY more weight watchers points. On average, I just went back a couple days and the foods I’m eating would be closer to 32-35 points a day. I am supposed to eat 26.  Clearly, if I ate this many points a day I would/could still lose weight as I am, but obviously not 2-3 pounds a week. I am comfortable with my 1.6 pounds. The previous week I lost 1.7, so clearly this is the pace my body is moving at with the foods I am feeding it. If next week I am in that 1.5 pound weight loss range I will know that this is in fact the right combo to keep this pace.

This makes it seem like I am somehow discouraged by 1.6 pounds. I am not. I think it’s great. I am eating foods that I want, not “point” counting, and most importantly having fun again recording foods and using my heart rate monitor. I know it will fade again, but for now I’m excited and that’s awesome. That means in 2 weeks I’ve lost 3.3 pounds. That’s progress. And I’m not starving, and I’m feeding my muscles. I should reiterate that when I lost all the weight 2 years ago, I did not starve myself. I really ate very well and loved myself. It was just totally different because I did not have the same body composition that I do now. I didn’t know any differently so eating 26 points a day worked because I wasn’t feeding muscle. My food intake is centered so much more on protein at this point in my life and honestly 2 years ago I could care less about protein. It’s the extra protein that makes my current point count higher. BUT my current body needs the protein.

I am actually REALLY comfortable with my pace right now because that would put me solidly in the mid 140’s when I go to San Jose the beginning of October and celebrate my 2 year weight loss anniversary. Our priorities and expectations are constantly shifting in life and that’s perfectly okay. Little by little we can widdle away at this, while still being strong and healthy. The weight on the scale really is so much less important than the feeling of confidence I get by eating healthy and being strong and in control, and ultimately that is what it’s all about.  Weight is highly irrelevant.

I had a good workout last night, personal training and then Iron Power class. Nice and strong and powerful. Good times. Tonight I am heading into the gym for some stuff on my own. I am going to do what I had intended to do on Tuesday night before I got puppy distracted and hit at least 15 minutes on the treadmill, I might go ahead and try and do 20 minutes, 2 miles, and then 15 minutes on the stair climber and THEN do my weights. I need to start adding just a tid bit more cardio into my routine. I honestly don’t do enough during the week. I think it should be good. I’m excited to try out this combo and see how it goes for me. Mix things up. Of course I’m excited at 11 AM in the morning, not sure how I am going to feel come 5 PM but that’s fine,  I am not at all doubting my ability to go ahead and do it, because that’s just what I do. I am a creature of routine and my routine is just to go to the gym most nights.

Chris has today and tomorrow off of work, so he gets to hang out with Baby Bella, which is really good. He has to run into his work area so he is taking Bella to introduce her to the guys there and then over to his dad’s so that he can meet her too. It is good to get them acquainted because he needs to be my babysitter when I go on my weekend adventures that I will not give up because we now have a puppy. In all fairness Grandpa is VERY good with dogs so there is no reason to assume he will not love her cute adorable little face as much as we do.

Speaking of cute adorable little faces, here are a few new photos from last night of my Bella Bugg. She is doing really well by the way. She is a puppy for sure, but she’s doing awesome. Molly on the other hand, is going to take a lot more convincing that Bella is worth keeping around. Baby steps.

Baby Bella

Well, sometimes life throws you for a few curveballs. Yesterday I pretty much had my evening laid out and then suddenly, life happens and everything changes. I left work at 2:30, picked up my sister who is here all week visiting, and we got in the car to drive over 2 hours to meet a guy half way between our locations, to buy a new puppy to add to my family.  So this is my Bella.

She is EXACTLY what we have been looking for. She is ½ Pug and ½ Boston terrier, she is a new baby, on Friday she will be 8 weeks old and she is a cute happy little girl. The guy selling her posted the photos the night before late, when I checked yesterday morning for dogs in the area she popped up. Of course she was actually about 4 ½ hours away geographically in Eastern Washington. I texted the guy and asked if he could hold her until Friday when Chris had the day off to drive and get her but he was resistant. Said he had lots of people interested today wanting to come get her and offered to pay OVER asking price. In all fairness his asking price was ridiculously low. I have been searching for this type of dog, a BUGG as they are called for a few weeks to a month now. They are generally $1,000 each because of the designer-ness of this dog. He wanted $75 for her. He said people were offering $100. I said, I’ll pay $100. Wait, I said I’d PayPal you $75 right now and then give you $75 cash on Friday. He wanted her sold yesterday.

He asked if he could drive and meet in the middle yesterday if I could do that. I said I guess, but how far was he willing to go? Of course after price negotiating for gas, etc., we settled on The Dalles Oregon which was about 2 to 2 ½ hours away for both of us and I agreed to pay him $275 for the little girl and his travel. The way I see it, I came out ridiculously ahead, because I have been looking at expensive dogs. Sometimes when something is meant to be, it’s meant to be. I’ve had the name Bella picked out for a couple months now. That is how you know you are probably ready for another dog. She is a puppy. She sleeps, and then she plays and chews, and then sleeps. She is going to be so much work honestly. I’m so used to my Molly dog who is 7 and perfect and so well behaved and trained perfectly. She is an awesome dog. I am sure Bella will get there in time. But thus begins the name training, trying to get her to come to her name, the potty training, the constant watching so that she doesn’t chew up items or electrical cords. Oh puppies, so cute and so much work.

Molly is not really a fan at this moment in time. She is being nice and respectful but mostly wants nothing to do with her. She has not been mean at all, but just goes the other way. Molly snuggles with us on our laps at night on the couch. Bella was up there and Molly just sat on the ground starring at us, pissed off. Yes, I could tell she was pissed off. I kept calling her up into my lap but when Bella came near she jumped off. I know it will take time for them to love each other, but I’m waiting for that day. It’s only been a few hours so I can’t expect instant miracles. The day those two actually have a happy positive interaction I am going to be very happy. For right now my Molly is my number 1 priority, I don’t really know Bella at all yet, but she’s sweet and good natured and that is important. We can train her to go potty outside and come to us and all those other things, but dogs temperament is pretty much set.  So far she seems loveable and snuggly and like a good girl. She is smart enough to not push Molly yet, despite being a puppy and wanting to play, she is giving Molly her space so at least that shows a good sense of intelligence already. I’m impressed.

Poor little girl is going to be crate trained, we have no other choice. I hate locking her up in a crate during the day, but what else can we do? In the end its best for her so that she learns the rules and we have a dog we can trust and run free, like my Molly girl. We got Molly as a very small puppy and she is just perfect, that was all Chris’s hard work. But she’s tiny and adorable. The photos don’t do justice to how small she really is. Can’t be more than like 5-6 pounds. Little love bug.  Chris has Friday off so she’s going into the vet for her checkup and shots and all that good stuff.

Sometimes I wonder why we do this to ourselves, like we don’t already have a ton of stuff going on in our lives, but I suppose there never really is a good time is there? With all that said, I did not go to the gym last night. I did not eat a ton either because I was on the road and nervous and anxious and not really sure if I was making the right decision. But I’m back on track today, full force. Not that I was off yesterday honestly. I didn’t eat fast food to compensate, so that’s good.

Today it’s good healthy times, its gym after work and personal training and then Iron Power class. Then I am going home to play with a puppy. Not too bad all things considered.

One little life alterting decision

I am feeling really good this morning. Sore but good. I like to describe it as my entire backside is aching from my neck down to my calves. The front side is good, but oh the subtle steady ache of all things backside related. I should not be allowed to complain because honestly the sick part of me loves it. I’m feeling good amounts of happy motivation right now and I love that. I feel like things are going in the right direction for me, I am on day 11 of logging my life in MyFitness Pal and I am just really loving that finally. I am loving my heart rate monitor which makes a big difference I think, and I am once again getting excited about running races. I had a lull in July where, along with my desire to be healthy and active, my desire to run was less than great. Right now I am feeling good about everything.

But, I am still extremely overjoyed about my upcoming San Jose trip. I am ready to take a mini vacation again. I think I have gotten used to getting on a plane with a certain amount of frequency and enjoying my late thirties, childless, adventures. In fact two months from today I will be in San Jose running a half. That is fabulous. Hopefully there shall be 10-15 pounds less of me, but I think I am going to do that. I feel really good and confident in the direction I am heading. I am eating a few more calories this time around. Ultimately may days end up in the 1,400 calorie range but I think that is okay given where I am at in my life. Maybe that means I won’t drop crazy amounts of weight, but it’s more sustainable ultimately. Baby steps. The first big yeah moment is going to be seeing a 4 as the second number on the scale. Meaning 140 something, like 149.9, ha… It’s said 150 something for a very long time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s going to say 150 something for a while longer but that’s perfectly okay for now.

I am starting to feel like I’m getting back into my rhythm of life where I am happy and confident and content. That is all I can really ask for honestly, and funny how that comes when I am being healthy and not  binging on food and connecting with people at the gym and connecting with my family and my husband. Everything goes together honestly.  Not that this is new or surprising information in the least. After a solid 10 plus days of being perfectly on track my body is thriving and adjusting to being healthy and active again. How easily we forget that our bodies just respond so much better to health and wellness.

So you know what happened 1 year ago today, I signed up to run my first half marathon. I knew it was around this time and I went back thru my archives and found the entry that on August 5, 2013 I signed up for my half marathon. I was excited and nervous and scared and terrified, but I hit submit. I could never have known how pivotal that single decision would become in my life. How life altering in every single way that decision would be. Here I am a year later and seriously have ran a total of 18 half marathons now. WOW. (2 in 2013 and 16 in 2014). That one single moment of bravery changed the course and direction of my entire life. Funny how seemingly insignificant decisions can become so profound in hindsight. Had I not done that I honestly couldn’t tell you where I would be today, what path I’d be on.  One simple decision with long lasting effects. It’s really quite amazing to think that simple decisions you make every single day can change your life. One year ago today I had only ever ran 1 5k in my life years before. I basically was a race novice and certainly never ran a half. I didn’t know if I could run 13.1 miles and yet here I am getting ready to go to San Jose in 2 months for another half. That in one year’s time since hitting submit on that first half registration, I have traveled to Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco, San Diego, and Seattle to run half marathons. Not to mention the plenty I have run right here in my own backyard. One simple decision changed everything! NEVER, EVER left fear stop you from doing what you desire. I am living proof of that. You can do anything you want when you simply believe it.

My heart is full and happy today with the knowledge of what this past year has brought me.  I couldn’t be prouder of this past year, 150 something pounds and all. Wait, I wish I was 150 pounds :)  Now wait until the celebration I’m going to throw at the end of the year when I reach my final year goal of that one crazy year when I ran all the races! 2014 is forever going to go down in my history books as that one year when I ran all the races… Seriously.

Tonight I am going to the gym, no classes, but I have a slightly different plan. I am going to run for 15 minutes only, try to push myself, and then I am going to do 15 minutes on the stair climber, which is tough! Get my cardio in this way, and then I am going to do at least 30 minutes maybe 45 minutes of strength training. That is the plan. And of course be good and healthy today as per my normal plans as of late. 10 lbs in 10 weeks is in full swing.

Refreshed Weekend

I had a good weekend. It seems that the pattern of my life is becoming more and more, have a great weekend, feel good and happy the first couple days of the week and then something happens mid-week to propel me into a funk that I can’t seem to escape until Friday when I get to finish work and enjoy another round of exciting weekend adventures. I suppose this might be typical honestly, but it’s interesting that I am noticing more the past few weeks.

Friday night I took off from exercise and ended up just going to Target walking around with Chris and doing a couple errands. It was nice and relaxing but I ate a little too much.  Nothing crazy, but as has been my entire life history on days when I don’t exercise there is a high probability that I will over indulge a bit in food.  According to My Fitness Pal I ate 1,845 calories. More than I would have liked, but not the end of the world. On the plus side I tracked all of it so that’s a bonus.

Saturday morning because I am entirely a crazy woman I decided that I was going to do two races. Originally Chris and I had signed up to run a half in Tigard, but somewhere along the line the start time got changed to 10:30 AM. Do you know how hot it was supposed to be at 10:30 AM and that is when I was supposed to be STARTING a 2 ½ hour run. I decided there was ZERO reason to do this to myself. Instead we both decided that downgrading to a 10k was perfectly acceptable. I could run for an hour and a few minutes in miserable heat but anymore would have been pointless torture given there was no real reason on this particular day to do more. BUT, given the late start time, I realized I could do an 8:30 5k race with my mom and sister. SOO, despite not having to, I signed up for an additional 5k on Saturday morning. Chris went with me although it was a female only race and my sister’s husband and Chris just hung out while my mom, sister and I did a 5k. It was lovely to be with them and push and encourage them.  I felt so proud of them and I felt like they appreciated my gentle pushing!  Plus the medal was awesome.

After the race was over we grabbed a little something to eat and then got in the car and drove the 30 minutes to Event 2, the crawfish crawl. We made it, parked and found the packet pick up booth, switched to the 10k, and then only had to wait like 5 minutes until the 10:40 start time for the 10k. It was perfect timing and I was ready to go. I was actually excited to run and incredibly thankful I was only doing a 10k and not a half. It was already miserably hot and the minute I started running I knew it was going to be brutal. Thankfully they gave us full plastic bottled waters at the aid stations so I was able to run with a bottle of water. About ¾ of it I consumed, the other ¼ I dumped on myself. I literally drank like 4 bottle of water on the 6.2 mile course. Around mile 1 I knew it was a smart decision to have switched to the 10k. The truth is 10:30 is just too late to be starting a race in extreme heat. I would have run the half if it had been an 8 or 8:30 start time latest. I could finish one up at 10:30, not start one then. I had nothing to prove to anyone so the 10k was perfectly fine. Not to mention the completion of a 5k earlier.

The run was nice, HOT and nice. I felt good during it, despite the heat. Like my body wanted to run which was a good thing. Also, I think I was excited because I finally bought a new heart rate monitor that came on Thursday night that I was wearing for the first time on Saturday. My Polar heart rate monitor quit working months ago and it just frustrated me more than anything so I quit using it. I opted for a Garmin this time so it would sync with Garmin Connect which connects directly with MyFitness Pal, which I have for some reason been using solidly for the last 10 days. I like that they all talk to each other. I was shocked to see the results of my heart rate monitor during my run. Most likely because it was terribly hot and I was working hard to push thru, during that 1 hour 13 minute run, I burned 1050 calories. Impressive. MUCH higher than I had thought. And then I was encouraged. I had assumed that during most exercises I was burning far fewer calories than maybe I actually am. Good to know.  But I LOVE this new Garmin HRM. It’s just a HRM, which is what I really wanted for the gym. I have a good Garmin GPS running watch that I use, which made me feel like a dork because I was actually wearing 2 watches during my run. GEEK. But I need them both so who cares.

So my first 5k I burned 400 calories and then my 10k I burned 1050 calories. This meant I was down a whopping 1,400 calories on Saturday and I was thrilled. Afterwards was this Crawfish Festival in the park and we hung out for a few hours taking in all the vendors and Chris drinking beers. It was fun. And then we got home and my mom and sisters were at a vineyard in Eugene, about an hour or so south of us and we decided to get in the car at 5 PM and drive there. So a very long day. We made it to the vineyard about 6:30 and were there for a couple hours and it was beautiful and lovely and a good time.  I honestly did pretty well with all my food choices on Saturday. It’s hard to track food 100% accurately when you are nibbling on cheese and crackers and meats, I tried but whatever it was didn’t really matter in the end because I did not exceed my 1,400 calories burned by a long shot.

We got home about 10:30 and I pretty much went to bed, I mean it was a long day, getting up at 5:30 AM, running a total of almost 9.5 miles and then lots of car driving. Sunday morning I woke up and new that I wanted to go to the gym and try out my new heart rate monitor while doing strength training. I was very curious to see what I was actually burning during these sessions. I know my heart rate spike here and there but it’s not a continued steady burn. I was assuming my 90 minute night sessions were around 250-300 calories. I was pleasantly wrong.

I texted Amanda my trainer Sunday morning and asked her if she was working out today, etc. We agreed to meet at 12:30 at the gym. Excellent. We did legs. Which was totally fine with me. Actually kind of preferred because it means that I get it done and out of the way for the week. We did a bunch of exercises and I kept checking my heart rate and low and behold 90 minutes later I had burned over 500 calories. I was happy to see this. Yeah new heart rate monitor that did not cut out on me and lose signal and accurately monitored my heart rate the entire workout.

I always doubt the effectiveness of my workouts. ALWAYS. But every single time I actually work out with Amanda I pretty much end up sore where I was supposed to be. Yesterday I honestly think we did not do that much or work that hard. (I think I was wrong BTW, it was pretty hard in hindsight) But I doubted that my ass would be sore which is what we targeted. I felt so fine yesterday and a little bit like I didn’t push. This morning my body is telling me another story. My ass hurts and my hamstrings hurt which was a direct result of the lots of deadlifts we did. So I really should learn to not doubt, because here I am, sore in all the places I should be.  That is effective working out I guess.

I tried really hard yesterday to monitor my eating and keep it in check. It is really hard when I was home about 2 PM and alone in the house for hours. This is the danger zone for eating. I tried to track everything and eat smartly. I finished the day at 1,420 calories. Now, I should tell you I don’t record small foods, like for instance I had chicken burgers for dinner last night and I had lettuce and onion and fat free mayo on it and I did not record anything for these items. That is where I will always draw my personal line. I will record the big items that are calories and add up. I refuse to input like a blade or two of lettuce and like the tiniest fraction of onion. Pick your battles.

Great weekend honestly. I felt good about things, felt great about my workouts and the quality time spent with my husband and my family. I got in a gym workout with Amanda. I got to play with my new heart rate monitor. I am on track with everything and recording my info on My Fitness Pal consistently. Consequently I am really liking that app. My sister and brother in law are using it and it’s nice to see there updates and be able to comment with them. I REALLY like it. In all the years of this health stuff I’ve never used My Fitness Pal and I must say I REALLY like it! So anyone feel free to friend me, its Emilymarie79 is my username.

Now it’s back at work and a new week all around. I feel pretty good today and living off of my weekend high, which I will go ahead and take. Yeah rejuvenating weekends!