Fitness Friday

Well, so much for week 2 of training! We spent the half the week at Disneyland and I missed 3 workouts! Will it kill me? Probably not. But, I hate missing workouts. I always feel like I have to make them up. Oh well. I will just have to maybe try to sneak another one or two in this week.

Also since we were at Disneyland, my eating habits went down the tubes. I did step on the scale. I was very unhappy. Enough said.

Fitness Friday

This was my first week of training! It went well. I have since given up on updating you with my weight loss and measurements. It seems just too depressing. I am trying to convince myself that if I keep up my training and eating well, then the results will follow, which they will. I am just not very patient.

Fitness Friday

Okay, so here is what I am finding. Last week I had good weight loss but poor measurements. This week, I lost 1 1/4 inches (from my mid-section! Yay!) but gained 8/10 of a pound. Err... I don't get it. I didn't have a great week as I was unmotivated and skipped Monday and Tuesday workouts, but I did workout today instead. Oh well, til next week.

Fitness Friday

How did this week go? Pretty good! I lost 1.2 pounds but gained 5/8 of an inch. Huh? I know go figure. I'm just going to chalk it up to my muscles buling up! Ha! I'll keep ya posted. Til next week, have a great workout!

Fitness Friday

Happy Friday! It is a happy one this week! First, congratulations to my husband Josh. His journey toward weight loss and a healthy lifestyle are successful! In five short weeks, he has lost 13 pounds! Congratulations, I am very proud of you! (And a little jealous too! But way more proud!)

I had a successful week too! Not as big as Josh's news, but still. I lost 1.4 pounds since my weigh-in last Friday! Woohoo! And a total of 1 1/2 inches! All this despite, having a wild night out with the girls, cheating on food a bit this week and skipping my "normal" Sunday, Monday and Tuesday workouts, but making them up on Wednesday. In addition to my "off" day being Thursday instead of today, Friday. Not too shabby.

What did I do different though? I think I unstuck my scale by drinking more water every day and getting more sleep at night. I'll keep trying that! Whatever it was it worked!

I have yet to follow through with the health tracker, though. Maybe this week. It just seems so time consuming and that is something that I don't have a ton of. I think I would really like it if I could consistently use it because you can track trends, which would be cool. Oh well. We'll see how this week shapes up.

Fitness Friday

Well, this has not been an overly successful week. I'm a little sick about it. While I didn't do horribly, I did cheat a bit. First, I didn't exercise on Tuesday, then I had a wonderful chicken and pasta anniversary dinner. Second, I didn't track my calories this week. My goal was to use the calorie counter for 1 week, I failed miserably, only using it for two days - the ones that I posted about last week. Third, I cheated and had dessert several nights this week. And the worst news... I gained 6/10 of a pound. I know I am probably being too hard on myself and should consider some of the other factors in my life right now. But no room for excuses. It was a bad week.

The thin silver lining is that I did make up the workout that I missed on Tuesday and I netted a 1/4 inch loss in body measurements. I did have good workouts this week, completing 557 minutes of exercise in the form of walking, running, intervals, step classes, weight lifting classes, resistance band training, Core classes, stability ball ab exercises and stretching. In fact, yesterday I did about 600 ab exercises! Woo! I'm tired just thinking about it!

But the real feather in my cap is that I spent 35 minutes on the treadmill and went 2.93 miles. I was trying for 3 miles. And this probably seems like a slow pace to all of you fit health freaks that are my friends, but for an old, overweight mommy, I'm pretty proud of this time. I doubt I'll ever see the my high school pace in the 7 minute miles, but I hope to see tens again some day. Hopefully by September I'll be in the twelves.

Goal for next week: use the calorie counter for one week Saturday through Thursday. Hold me accountable.

Fitness Friday

This week I have completed 5.85 hours of exercise in the form of walking, Step classes, weight lifting classes, stability ball abdominals, resistance band training and stretching. I have lost 4/10 of a pound and taken a baseline for my measurements. I have consumed a two-day average of 1,735 calories and burned a two-day average (including my lifestyle baseline) or 2,125 calories. Yay! But, this is only a two-day average. Next week will be a better indication of how I am doing since, I will have a week-long average.

Health Tracker

Check out this cool health tracker I found on Prevention Magazine's website.

http://www.prevention.com/cda/healthtracker.do?fdpath=oi%2FFitDay%2FHome.html%3F_a_Date%3D1242172800.%26_a_rdata%3DFitWrapper%26_s_FormName%3Doi9%26_s_FormCheck%3D-2028766650%26_s_RangeName%3DDay1%26_s_oi1_oi9%3DUPDATE&rdata=FitWrapper&rpagename=Home&rpagecategory=Home

You can sign up, input all your personal information, such as height, weight, age, then what type of lifestyle you have. You can input the food you have eaten, exercise you have completed and it tracks it for you. You can ask it to view trends, you can input and track your body measurements. I am loving this.

So, my goal is to lose 17 pounds. And in doing so, I intend to use this health tracker to help me do it. I also intend to use my blog, to hold myself accountable. I am hoping to complete a half marathon this year, finally! I am going to start a new series here, Fitness Friday. Since Friday is my "off" day for exercise and strict diet, I will utilize it to update you on my weekly exercise, weight loss and measurement changes. Hopefully we will both be pleasantly surprised by the end of the summer. :) Thanks for you help.

It's cold season again!

Oh boy, do I ever hate the fall, especially now that the kids are old enough to go to school/preschool. Actually, I have a love/hate relationship with Fall, and Spring for that matter. They just wreck havoc on this family. Taylor has a cold, okay, really just a cough now. When he gets a cold, all of the other symptoms run their course very quickly, typically 5 days-ish. But the cough manifests itself in his poor little chest making it difficult for him to catch his breath between coughing fits and progressing quickly from nothing to pneumonia. We have recently found out that this is a form of asthma. He gets an asthmatic wheezing in his chest when he gets sick. Thanks goodness that he has never had a "typical" wheezing, gasping asthma attack. Instead he just coughs uncontrollably. I have learned to give him a quick shot of his rescue inhaler to open his airways right up and calm the cough.

Not yesterday. We went to a Halloween party yesterday. We were having fun, playing with other kids and mommies, when Taylor started coughing, and coughing, and coughing. He couldn't stop. So, like any mom, knowing exactly how to handle her child's medical condition, I rushed to my purse for his inhaler. I gave him two quick shots. His cough calmed for all of five seconds. Okay, now panic is starting to set in a little. I began quickly gathering our stuff, while my child is coughing so hard that he is spitting up. I rush the kids out to the car, calmly, as I may feel panicky, but I definitely don't want to alert them. Into the car everyone climbs, I stomp on the peddle going as fast as the twisty, turny, windy, narrow streets will let me. Luckily we were only a short mile and a half from home. I quickly get the medicine into the nebulizer and start Taylor on a breathing treatment, hoping, praying that this will stop the attack. Otherwise, it is off to the Emergency room. As he breathes in the medications, his cough slowly subsides, indicating his airways are opening. Whew. My adrenaline finally balances out and panic slowly leaves me. I haven't had such a feeling in quite awhile.

So today, I kept Taylor home from school to give him the maximum number of breathing treatments we can today. I have got to knock this virus out of him. I just hope this will work, it has in the past. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

SLO City to Sea

One week ago today, the San Luis Obispo City to Sea Mini-Marathon started, without me. That's right, four months of training down the drain. Why? If you read my previous posts, you'll know that I pulled my right hamstring while playing in a charity softball tournament during our vacation in August. I was so disgusted with not being able to train at my regular pace that I sat on my ass and ate for 6 straight weeks. I totally negated the 15 pound weight loss that I had worked so hard for. Actually I only gained 10 pounds, but still. I have been finding it very difficult to get back into the training mode now that I can walk without pain and I don't have an ice pack attached to the back of my leg for 6 hours a day. Well, that and the next SLO City to Sea is almost a yar away. A goal that is far out. I guess I will just have to find and set a more immediate goal. Any suggestions?

Not to mention that Septmeber 1 came and I gave up cigarettes, cold turkey. I feel like I am a hard core addict, "49 days clean and sober." But I guess in some ways, I really am. With the weight gain, it just feels like such a hollow victory.

Training

In the days leading up to and following my 30th birthday, I reflected quite a bit on my life. I decided that, from a physical standpoint, I was not near the shape or condition that I want to be. I realize that it will be near impossible to ever get my small figure back that I enjoyed during my high school and college days after having two kids, but I can, at least, be in much better shape. So, I set some lofty goals to lose weight, burn fat and generally take better care of my body. So, on March 31, I began a workout routine that I read about while in the waiting room at the pediatrician's office, http://www.prevention.com/cda/article/burn-calories-workout-38-marathon-training-schedule/efb9ef8454e58110VgnVCM20000012281eac____/fitness/walking/walking.programs. I followed the six week program, almost to a tee, minus the six-foot exercise band. In the six week period, I lost seven pounds. Not bad. But, this wasn't quite where I want to be. So, on Monday, I started a marathon training program described in the same article. I am totally stoked that in this short seven-week time, I have lost eight pounds, inches off of my key fat zones and increased my walking speed, all with the goal of walking the San Luis Obispo City to Sea Mini Marathon on October 12, http://www.citytothesea.org/.


Consider that my first workout was a 20 minute walk. It took me 25 minutes to walk 1.2 miles and I could only muster 50 sit-ups (okay really some form of abdominal crunches). That's just over 20 minutes per mile. Today, I walked 2.9 miles in 47 minutes and pounded out 300 abdominal crunches in 10 minutes. For a total workout time of one hour. Not too shabby. The thing that I am most proud of, though, is how much my walking speed has improved. From a 20 minute mile to just over a 16 minute mile in only seven weeks. And this is just the beginning. I am continuing the 12 week training program, modified to a 22 week training program through race day, October 12, 2008. If all goes well, I will continue to train in hopes to complete a full marathon in 2009. And thus, crossing off one of my Before-I-Turn-40 goals. Nothing motivates like self-criticism and life reflection.