RBR just reminded me that the 10K is on Sunday - 1 day and 10 hours away! I'm totally ready..... not to run or even walk it in a certain amount of time. But, I'm ready to do it! I'll be slow and might even blow out my knee on those 15th street hills, BUT I won't be stuffing my face with Shipley's donuts that morning... and that's progress.
Other OMG moments this week -
I completed an application to be a part of a Master Reading Teacher program this summer. I seriously doubt I'll get in, especially since I've been out of the classroom for a year and a half now, but it was worth a shot. I'm hoping my bilingual certification will give me an edge.
But, I also got a call from the principal at my former school and they want me back as their bilingual Kinder teacher. Cool! I can basically just step right back into the position I was in before I got pregnant and went on parental leave. Sweet! Plus, I should be eligible for a $1500 signing bonus since I officially resigned from the district and am now re-applying! Even sweeter!
However, I just have to say that teachers have to fill out the most ridiculous applications. Both the school district application and MRT application were exhausting to complete. Honestly, I think they're designed so that they can find out who the good bull-shitters are...... oh, is that bad of me to say.. out loud?
Oh, yes....and I didn't weigh-in today. TOM came back on Tuesday (another OMG moment), so I've just stayed away from the scale all week. I'll see how things are tomorrow.
Yesterday I worked outside in our yard from about 11 AM until 7:30 PM, mostly cleaning up damage done by our dogs, e.g. filling in 'boredom' holes that they've dug, fixing the fence, picking up the remnants of things that they've chewed up (permitted objects & otherwise), but I did also manage to get a few flowers planted. While that wasn't dedicated exercise, let me tell you -- I was exhausted when I finished! I don't think my body has ached that much since I fell off my bike!
Today, I've simply recovered from yesterday by eating too many chocolate eggs, fudge & peanut butter eggs, cookies, and a mushroom swiss burger. We'll call it an "off-plan" day.
Anyway, despite having taken a shower last night (..and, therefore sleeping on my hair which renders it completely untameable), I went ahead and took a few pictures today.
Me with my 18-month-old, Erin.
Here are a couple pics of my "progress," if you want to call it that. You'd think that losing 50 pounds would make more of a difference. I can clearly see that I'm losing in 2 places - my face and my legs. Not much is happening with my mid-section, though, which....sucks. I know it's smaller since I'm wearing smaller clothes, but the spare tire is ridiculous. (Ok.. I guess having one the size of a spare for a mid-size car is better than having an 18-wheeler spare around your middle!)
When I look at these, I can definitely understand why any little rock that causes my ankles to turn a bit sends me crashing down into the street. With all that weight on top, my poor legs don't stand a chance!! LOL
Ok, seriously though. Enough with the self-deprecating remarks. I see some differences, but also some areas that need definite work (which I already knew, but seeing it tends to light a fire under one's ass).
So, here's my plan:
Instead of signing up for the triathlon training this year, I'm going to save it for 2009. That will give me a chance to lose more weight, work on my core, and most importantly, give me a goal to keep working towards throughout 2008 that is not based on my weight.
To reduce the size of that spare tire, I'll be signing up for the next PT session at Jazzercise. PT focuses on strength training and is about as close to having my own personal trainer as I'll be able to get for now. I'll also continue working on my jogging and already have a 5K in mind that is a mere 14 days after the Cap10K on March 30th.
Well, it's 1:17 AM and I'll be getting kids up to go to school in about 5 hours, so I guess I'd better hit the hay, too. My hubby's in Atlanta until Tuesday and then in Dallas on Wednesday, which means I'll be the only one tending to the kids, house, and pets until Thursday. Soooo, please don't feel neglected..... I'll come check on you all as soon as I can!
It is sooo nice to see the scale moving down again, after such a long dry spell! The scale showed a 1.8 lb. loss for me this morning!
So what have I been doing to jump start the losses? First of all, I've been giving my body a break between workouts. I work out 2 days, then take 2 days off. Also, I've been using The Daily Plate more consistently and consciously. I've finally figured out that they're closer to "right" than Jenny Craig about the number of calories I should be eating per day.
Every day I enter every morsel that passed through my lips on The Daily Plate. On days I workout, I enter my exercise and they calculate how many calories I should have burned. I check my HRM and then change the "time" I exercised until The Daily Plate numbers and my HRM coincide. (Sometimes the website "thinks" I burned more calories than I did, so that's why I change the time.... I'm concerned about calories, not time spent exercising.) The Daily Plate always says I should eat more after exercise, so I have been - that meant that one day this week I ate over 2400 calories so that my net calories for the day were in the 1500 range, which is what they say I should eat to lose 2 lbs. per week. I think 1.8 lbs. is pretty darn close to that, don't you?!
I'm going to try to get some pics posted this weekend. It's time to compare pics to see if there's a difference between how I look now and how I looked last summer. I meant to do it last weekend, but well, you know.... life happens.
On Friday, to give myself a non-food reward for getting to my half-way mark, I made an appointment for a facial and eyebrow threading. That's unusual because I don't often go for those 'girly' maintenance things. But, I have had one facial before and thought that would be a good treat because, frankly, it was divine.
The eyebrow threading was cool! I'll definitely be going back and will never again have someone wax my brow. There was a little sting when the technician would pull out the hairs, but it was nothing like the torture of a wax. Plus, I left there without red marks over and under my eyebrows and no post-wax rash. (I've got really sensitive skin.) So, nobody would have ever guessed that I had just had it done! The facial was nice, too...she suggested that I come back every 6 weeks for the facial and I think I may. My skin just feels sooo good afterwards!
I felt so much better after the threading and facial that I even gave myself a mini-pedicure last night. Maybe my next reward will be a professional pedicure..... I'm starting to really like focusing on myself for a change!
After 2 days' rest, I got out today and "wogged" 5.25 miles. (Yep, I'm officially stealing Andrea N.'s word because I'm too lazy to write out: interval walked & jogged.)
I had wanted to do a full 10K today, but came up about a mile short simply because I decided that it was "enough" for today. My arms were getting a little sore from holding the dogs' leashes and I didn't want to totally wear myself out. So, later next week, I'll get in a full 10K, but without my dogs.
I really paid attention to my HRM today and every time I went over my target range, I started walking. Then, when my heart rate slowed down too much, I bumped up the workout a bit. That worked really well for me and I ended up burning over 300 "fat" calories. Yay!
Oh, yes... and the .2 pounds separating me from the halfway mark were totally gone this mornng. Yippeee!
Last but not least, for the past few weeks I've been eye-ing the website of a triathlon training group here. I talked to my husband about it and he didn't seem to be bothered by the idea of me doing it... however, I did (conveniently) fail to mention the cost. We'll see if I can muster up the courage to actually sign up for it..... I'm terrified...
Yeah! I finally saw 210 on the scale for more than a fleeting second!!!! It took me long enough to get here, but big-picture-wise, that's just fine. I'll take slow weight loss over astronomical gains any day.
Y'all have a FABULOUS Friday!!
~ Shannon ~
P.S. I'm gifting myself the .2 and saying half-way.
This post is the result of reading a comment that RBR left on Lupine's blog..... (sorry, gals, I frequently read other people's comments... 'cause I'm nosey, I guess. lol)
Once I let go of old bullshit ideals of what an athlete was I was able to become an athlete, once I let go of bullshit ideals of what beautiful is I can feel beautiful, and once I let go of bullshit ideals of what successful is I can be a success.
Wow - that was just what I needed to read!! My body hasn't wanted to give up the pounds lately and that just made me angry as hell. So, what did I do? I pushed and pushed...to no avail.... and that was beginning to wear me down, not only physically (I've been dog-tired lately & even my daughter asked me today why I was falling asleep on the couch all the time), but also mentally.
So, I'm letting go. My body will give up the pounds when it's ready as long as I treat it right. Period. That means giving it proper nourishment and respecting its physical limitations. Other than monitoring those two things, I cannot control when or how many pounds my body will... release.
On another note, after 1 full day of complete rest and 3 false starts today, I actually just completed the treadmill aerobic workout that has both haunted and taunted me for about 6 years. It's an aerobic interval workout that consists of 5 minutes walking and 5 minutes 'jogging' at an incline of 2%. I ACTUALLY DID THE ENTIRE THING!!!!! I jogged for 5 minutes straight, three separate times!!!
(Now, we'll see if I can do it again next week..... after I've allowed myself some rest, of course. )
That's what I'm getting from my investment in myself. Why, you ask? Well, it occurred to me today that I'm over training. That sounds strange coming out of the mouth (or off the fingers) of a fat woman, but I think it's true. All weekend I was thinking about the fact that ever since I've actually tried to lose weight, I've lost less and even hit a plateau. Plus, there have been at least 2 days (today being one of them) in recent memory during which I've felt absolutely exhausted and that lends credence to my overtraining theory.
Today, my body is aching all over and I just want to sleep. So, I think I will!
To continue preparing for the 10K, though, I need a plan. The first thing I'm going to do is stop doing "2-a-days." If I walk/jog a 5K, then I willnot come home and do circuit training later in the afternoon - one exercise session per day, period, no matter how energized I'm feeling. Also, I think Jazzercise is out until after the 10K. I love it, but I think my body has gotten accustomed to it and it's not helping me get better at jogging or really building my endurance at this point. So, here's the plan for this week:
3/10 – rest
3/11 – circuit training (45 mins.)
3/12 – walk/jog (5K minimum, max time: 1 hour)
3/13 – rest
3/14 – circuit training (45 mins.)
3/15 – walk (10K – no matter how long it takes)
3/16 – rest
Ugh. 3 "rest" days and no Jazzercise at all. I don't want to do it this way, but I think I have to.
Well, y'all have a great Monday.... I'm off to bed!
Yesterday after my somewhat disappointing 1 lb. loss, I did some cleaning around the house. It's really amazing how therapeutic some of those typically mundane chores can be. I felt a lot better afterwards and had a cleaner house, to boot!
Something interesting thing happened yesterday while I was folding & hanging up laundry. I pulled out one of my size 18 dress slacks that I got at Target in December. When I pulled them out and was adjusting the waist band, I thought, "Man, these are big!" and checked to make sure it wasn't an old pair of 22s that I had forgotten to donate to charity. Nope - they were the 18s. Later, I put on those same pants as I was getting ready for my Jenny Craig meeting..... and they were looser around the waist than they've been in the past. THEN, I get to Jenny Craig and post a 2.2 pound loss even though my BAN weight only showed a 1 lb. loss. Weird!
Now I'm thinking that during February while I was battling with the same 1-2 lbs. that my body was readjusting itself and while my body weight was the basically the same, my body composition was not.
I find it curious that all of a sudden my size 18s are looking big to me now. Yes, I know they are big, but when just 9 months ago I was sitting in Lane Bryant on the verge of tears because I needed a size 24 capris, the 18s were feeling pretty small when I got them. I guess my perception of my size is changing as my body's getting smaller...which is interesting and good. I hope it stays that way so that I won't be one of those silly girls who thinks she's fat, wearing a size 8/10.
1 pound. That's it. I should be happy 'cause I've finally broken the 212 barrier, but I'm not. I'm irritated. Well, there's no sense in working myself up about it; I just need to move on.
So... there are 23 days left until the 10K. I already feel like I need to puke. I'm so not ready. I can't run... geez.... I'm going to end up walking the whole darn thing. My husband's been training for it and reluctantly told me how far he had jogged - almost 4 miles - without stopping. What the fuck?! I can barely run 4 minutes and he's doing 4 miles?! I had to bite my tongue; otherwise, he'd never tell me anything else again.
Ugh. I suck. I'm at that place again where I can't seem to make any progress fitness-wise or weight-wise. I'm feeling better about my appearance, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Feeling better (plus) no measurable progress = complacent attitude... (and ultimately, my demise).
*sigh* I have to keep at it. Eventually, something will happen. I already know what will happen if I stop... and I do not want that outcome.
OK, folks, I'm okay. I just needed to get all that out before I eat it... and I'd really like to eat it right now, but instead, I'm going to go take a shower since I just got home from Jazzercise. (Now thatis progress.)
Edit: There are 22 days, 21 hours left until the 10K.... less than I thought. LOL
Me with my 18-month-old, Erin.
