Whats in a bet....

What a crazy last couple of weeks I have had, with very little workout...ugh! I feel like poop, but I am determined to make the best of it. I have spent the last 3 months helping the owner at work organize construction crews, electric crews, carpet laying crews, and various other task.....ok, ok, ok, so I did most of it and I am EXHAUSTED dang it! But its done, we finished up the big part of the move last Saturday and I couldn't be happier. With the long days that I have had to put in and missing my nightly workouts I started to feel blah, and grumpy! But I am back at it, got a good run in on Sunday and look forward to another great workout tonight.

I was able to meet up with a friend twice over the last couple of weeks for a good walk/run. She has decided to join me in the journey to do the Tinkerbell Half Marathon in January. Although she is a couple of months behind me in training I am confident she will catch up and we will do this. Our last walk was downtown along the harbor, it was nice and humid and icky out (which is unusual for San Diego) but we did it anyway. We pushed for 3 solid miles and kept up a pretty good pace, and kept up the momentum. It was nice. But along the way we passed Ruth Chris Steakhouse, and it began. She said we should make a bet to loose 30 pounds....hhhhmmm...another 30 lbs down, sure why not. I'll take on the challenge. So here it is...the first one of us to loose 30 lbs gets dinner at Ruth Chris Steakhouse (or a restaurant of their choice, because later we walked by the fish market and that looked good too ;) ) paid for by the looser.

But that leads me to another question posed to me by a friend at a bbq a few weeks ago, How come when we are trying to loose weight, we choose to reward ourselves with FOOD?????? I don't get it and probably never will. But I do know that there are certain foods that I LOVE, and have had to say no to more than once during this journey. So maybe its the goal of being able to taste that food that pushes me to get to that next step? Whatever it is I am going to accept it and continue doing what I am doing fairly well at...haha! Maybe I'll think about adding in some none food related goals in the next couple of months. But until then.....30 lbs and I'm going to RUTH CHRIS!!!

Getting easier and easier....

I have decided I am tired of missing my workouts because of work and life in general. This is my time, my time for me, an hour to hour and a half each day for me! That's all I ask for and dang it I deserve it! I work so hard for everyone else in my life that it is time for me to get more focused on me! Yes I have been hitting the gym pretty hard the last 6 months, but if I leave work even 10 minutes late theres no parking at the gym here by work. By the time I get to East County its too late for me to make it to the gym and be home before Steven has to leave for work. So I miss a good workout, ya sometimes Tyler and Steven will walk with me around the neighborhood but its not really a workout. No more excuses, even if I have to change here at work and run around our office I will. Or drive down the street to Miramar Lake to run, I am going to do this better than ever before!

I started it yesterday morning, knowing that I had a full day ahead of me at the bay with family I was up at 6:30 am, yes on a Sunday, and I hit the gym. I didn't want to miss out on another workout so I made it a point to get up and drag my butt to the gym while everyone in my house was still asleep. And I did it! 2 miles! 2 miles straight no breaks to walk even a little bit. I set the treadmill at a comfortable pace and went for it, might I add that my ipod was out of battery so I did it without the assistance of music. To my amazement, I actually felt pretty dang good. My legs didn't burn, I didn't feel out of breath, I just kept going.....before I knew it I looked down and I was at 1.75 miles, just like that I was there. So I kept pushing to 2, I think I could have gone at least another .5 a mile but I decided not to kill myself. I was pretty happy with 2 miles, it is for sure the longest that I have EVER run at one time in my life straight for any reason.  Here's to 3 miles.....

Slight set back...won't slow me down

Well as my running adventures began, I noticed that my right foot was becoming more and more painful. It feels as though I had broken the two little bones ontop of my foot...not sure how to explain it but the ones that connect to my baby toe and the one next to it. Oh my gosh does it hurt! It doesn't seem to want to go away. So saturday morning after Tyler's swim practice to the urgent care I went, ugh! I hate nothing more than going to the doctor. Mainly because it seems that when I do I end up in surgery, at least for pains like this one (back to back shoulder surgeries for a torn bicep in the same arm has made me gun-shy).

So urgent care is where I spent my morning, waiting, and waiting. Finally I got called in, the nurse did her usualy vitals and check in. I told her what was going on, and of course she asked how it happened. Well if I knew I'd tell ya but I don't know, it just happened over time. At any rate I told her my weight loss accomplishments and how I have decided to take on the biggest challenge of my life and train to run this half marathon. She was really impressed! When I went to xray, the xray tech told me how impressed he was that I had taken on this challenge (I didn't even get a chance to tell him how my injury happened). When my doctor came in she started off by saying, "a half marathon huh? That is very impressive! You can do it we will get you taken care of you and get you back out there running." It sure did feel good to have absolute strangers root me on while I do this.

After talking about my running and weight loss accomplishments for a few minutes, we turned our attention to my foot. The doc came to the conclusion that I either have deep tissue bruising, or a stress fracture. She leaned more towards a stress fracture and wanted to wrap up my foot and put me on crutches. Ya that's not gonna work, I have a 3 year old. So she said that since the xray did not show the stress fracture and that we would have to wait until Monday to have the radiologist read the xray I didn't have to be wrapped up just yet. Just lots of icing and resting of the foot was in order instead. Monday came and no phone calls, so I am assuming no stress fracture!

I'm not really one to slow down! 4 days after having a csection, I was back at work part time (Tyler was in the hospital and I was bored at home and needed to keep my mind busy). 3 days after each of my 2 shoulder surgeries, still in a sling I was back at work full time. Slowing down just isn't in my regular vocabulary.

But I took it as easy as I could with my busy never stopping life, I had already missed workouts on Thurs and Friday and chose to go ahead and skip Sat and Sunday. Monday I did a walk with my two favorite boys around our neighborhood. But yesterday it was on, back to run/walking. I did 30 minutes of it on the treadmill and felt SOOOO good! Sure does feel good to get the blood flowing. So I will ease my way back into this and keep it going......

Running is starting to become a passion...

I did it, after feeling blah all day yesterday I still drug myself to the gym and had a REALLY good run. In the process of signing up for the Tinkerbell half Marathon a screen popped up that has information on properly training for a half marathon for beginner runners. Although I have already been running (well trying to run) for the last month or so, I have decided to stop the way I was doing it and follow the runs laid out in the disney training program.

Its more of an interval training with 30 minutes of walking/running twice a week and then a long run on a third day. So last night instead of timing the run/walk periods I did it in distances....so walk .20, run another .40, walk .20 etc. I ended up going about 35 minutes total which surprised me a little. I can't believe I am actually doing this!

My scale is not really moving down as fast as it used to, which I guess can be expected at periods during this whole process. But it is a little frustrating, I was hoping to be down a hell of a lot more than I am now. As frustrating as it is, my clothes are still getting looser and looser which is a good thing for my mind, but not my pocket book.

Tonight I am having dinner with friends, so no workout for me. Have a busy weekend ahead, but I am determined to get my third run in even if it means Tyler and I head to the bay for a run while he rides his bike and Daddy stays home to sleep. I'll keep ya posted on how it goes.

Feeling pretty darn good...

I have to say I'm feeling pretty good...

Last night I had the opprotunity to go to dinner with a friend and catch up after what feels like forever of not seeing each other. I opted to have a salad for dinner, and it was pretty tasty. Although I did treat myself to a smal piece of the bread and some zucchini spears, yes fried, but its still a veggie right ;). I went home to an empty house, which is highly unusual for me as there is always someone there. I wasn't too comfortable with it and didn't sleep well at all. But for some reason when I woke up this am I felt really good and stepped on the scale. Much to my amazement I am down another 2 LBS!

Today I sit at work a little out of it and tired from not sleeping well, yet I still for some reason feel pretty good and am actually pumped and ready to hit the gym after work to get a run in. This oughta be interesting... is it the runners high I'm looking for that everyone talks about, or simply how good I feel after a good workout.

Who woulda thunk that me of all people would be pumped and ready to hit the gym so that I can sweat, workout and run of all things.....YIKES! I'm a little afraid of what I am becoming...lol.

Everyone else is doing it so why not me....

It seems more and more that my friends and some family are beginning to blog what is going on in their lives. I was amazed to find out that I have started this process at least 3 times over the past few months. I honestly do not remember doing it or starting it. So here it goes this time is for real....

On Jan 9, 2011 I embarked on a journey, a journey in life to make myself feel better, be healthier, and look better. I did it I started a life style change....I cut out all of the bad things in my eating habits, and started working out regularly. The first two to three weeks were a breeze, I thought, I got this! This isn't as bad as I thought. Well of course it wasn't, I secluded myself from almost everyone. I told no one, not even Steven what I was doing. For me it was about getting myself comfortable with the fact that I was going to do this and make myself proud before anyone else. So I did!

Then one morning I logged into Facebook and saw that one of my uncles had embarked on the same journey as me. I was so happy to see that someone else was doing it that I started telling everyone what I was doing and giving everyone around me updates on how much I had lost, how much I was doing at the gym, and how good I was feeling. It has been an awesome experience to reconnect with my Uncle Robert via facebook and be able to keep up with each others progress over the last 6 months. So much so that I was convinced that I should try and run a half marathon!

WHAT, me run! My little plan to get healthier, eat healthier, look better, feel better has now led me to do the unimaginable....RUN! I was not even thinking of running, nor did I even like to run. 44 lbs lost, 4 sizes down, I thought was doing pretty good, so why not do it. I'll give it a shot.

So running I have added to my regular workout routine, 3-4 times a week I run. I'm not the fastest at it, nor can I do the longest distance but I will get there, and I will do this. Of course now I have to, my registration fees have been PAID! I am officially going to make this happen (at least give it my best shot) in 226 days, 13 hours, 38 minutes, and 37 seconds (thanks to the clock on the website for the race).

Tinker Bell Half Marathon here I come..........