Experiment Time

Starting today I am going to stop counting calories.

But only for a week.

I woke up early and weighed myself. 130lbs even.

I plan on eating the way I know how to this week and weighing in again next Monday. I eagerly await the results. I want to just listen to my body, eat food that's good for me, and not obsess on meeting or beating my daily calorie limits.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am a huge proponent of tracking what you put in your mouth. It was one half of the awesome duo that was key to my weight loss. I just feel like I've been obsessed with it for almost a year now and I want to see if I can just EAT, not count and maintain my weight.

Wish me luck.

In exercise news, I pounded out 4 long boring miles on the treadmill this morning. I missed my long run this weekend and that put me in a running funk but things will be fine. I know this.

Have a great week and Happy Running!

I'm Fine. Really.

Hello there! I'm doing much better! Even sans makeup and on the INTERNETZ I am happy happy happy!

What? You didn't know I wasn't doing so hot?

It was really more of an internal turmoil, not so much external. Although the last time we chatted I was bummed about my missed long run.

Folks, I was totally beating myself up for falling back into really terrible eating habits. Hence the reworking of goals and yada yada yada.

I am proud to say that the last few days I've stayed on track, gotten in all my exercise, and am pretty pleased overall.


And now on to address an email and a comment I received.

First up, I received an email from a lady who basically wants to know how I lost all my weight. She says she has been a runner for a good amount of years and is currently in marathon training but she isn't losing any weight. I have no answer for this. At least not for her. I am a firm believer in everyone is different inside and out. What works for me won't necessarily work for you.

But, to answer the how did I do it question....I did it through good ole' fashioned calories in versus calories out. Expend more calories than you take in. Get yourself a daily calorie intake of what is best for you. Try this calculator to figure it. Then go to SparkPeople, get a free account and record every single thing you put in your mouth! When I started my health journey it was with walking and reducing calories, but not by an extreme amount. Then I did get kind of extreme. When I started running and losing weight, I wanted to lose more weight. So I made my daily calorie limit 1300. Pretty low for an active person. Some months the weight would fall off. Others it stood still. I took cheat days and would absolutely gorge when I did. Eventually I evened it out to eating around 1500 a day and still losing weight. Actually when I increased my calories a bit I lost those last 10 I was trying for. Lately I've been around 1600-2000 a day. Some days more. Which is why I am back on track and trying to keep it at 1500 to lose another 4 lbs.

All this talk of extreme calorie counting brings me to the comment I received. A reader asked how I had the energy to run only eating 1200 or 1300 calories a day. The answer is... I didn't. I often felt very sluggish on my runs and couldn't seem to break past the 3 mile wall. Only when I increased my eating to 1500 or so did I see an improvement in my running and weight loss.

So it seems I am a swinger. I swing from one extreme to the other and have a hard time finding a happy medium.

For now, I am going to keep increasing my mileage, keep my calories somewhere in the middle, and just be super duper happy with my body because I have worked hard for it and it is mine!

And one reason I love this body is because it carried me through 6 whole miles Monday morning without complaint. This run was pretty good overall. The first three miles were like running underwater. Arkansas humidity is insane! At mile 3.5 we took a 2 minute walk/water/Sports Beans break and the remaining miles were a piece of cake! Mmmmm, cake. Sorry, I got distracted. Anyhoooo....it was a good run and I am pleased with my miles. Tuesday I hill walked on the treadmill and did SparkVideos and this morning I did a easy mile warmup and then two miles of intervals on the treadmill. Despite being inside in my chilly house, I was sweating like crazy. Those intervals kicked my butt!

Tomorrow I will rest. Rest as in, deep clean my house, take the kids swimming, and hardly sit down. Friday will be 3 miles on the treadmill and Saturday another long run. I can't wait! My husband laughs when I say I can't wait to run 6 miles at 6am on a Saturday morning.

Hope you are having a healthy happy mentally stable week! Happy running!

Sometimes You've Just Got To Have Pasta

Good evening all!

I'm feeling especially cheerful today. I've had a great day health wise. I'm talking stellar, top notch, couldn't have done better.

Before we get to the details of today though, let's backtrack to yesterday. I put in a little over two miles on the treadmill. One quick mile and another mile of hill walking at a 10% incline speed set at 4. It was brutal and I was dripping in sweat even in the nice cool a/c.

Anyways, I had my eating all lined out and had only consumed 550 calories after lunch. Then I got a call that instead of picking up my eldest son at our normal location, I was going to have to drive an additional hour past there to where his Dad lived to get him. His Dad and step mom had come down with a stomach bug and were in no shape to be traveling and I wanted to get him out of there before he caught it! No worries though. I was excited at the prospect of a trip to Fayetteville. I lived there 6 years before moving back to the boonies and was positively giddy with all the dinner options presented to me on Sunday evening.

So when I got there and swooped up the kiddo, we proceeded to meet a friend (and swoon over her darling newborn) for dinner at Noodles.

I LOVE NOODLES!

I missed this place like no other. I'm not even going to pretend that what I ordered was healthy, but it was sure good! I had the Parmesan Chicken with Jalapeno Cream Sauce. I like my food spicy and it did not disappoint. Of course our dinner also included bread and dipping oil along with salad. Oh and I also indulged in two cosmopolitans. I promise that I did glance at the low carb options but that just didn't seem like any fun.

Noodles is a restaurant that demands carb overload!

The kids split a Chicken Spinach Alfredo pizza and I cross my heart I did not even sneak a bite. Not that it would have mattered anyways, cause on the way home we hit up Sonic for ice cream and I had a Mocha Java Chiller. What? It was a two and half hour drive and I needed coffee. Yes, I am aware I could have had it sans ice cream but I had already blown the bank for the day. And you know what? I don't feel bad at all.

On to today, and I am coming in at a calorie total of 1205. Wooohooo! I also went with my buddy Dala to do her C25K and got in 2.5 miles and then when I got home I rocked out on the treadmill for another 1.10 miles. I'm feeling fit and healthy today.

I began the morning with a smoothie. This one included spinach, almond butter, chocolate powder, banana, strawberries, and almond milk. Snack was a Sargento Pepper Jack Cheese stick wrapped in a piece of low fat ham. Lunch consisted of grilled chicken breast salad on romaine with salsa as dressing and a little bit of shredded cheese. I also whipped up some hummus from scratch and enjoyed that with my lunch and then again with carrots and bell pepper strips as a snack. Dinner was grilled white fish, corn on the cob, and sauteed spinach, onion, and bell pepper. A good good eating day!

Did you indulge this weekend? If so, are you back on track today?

Post-5K

Hello all you happy people!

I know that if you are on a health journey in any way, shape, or form then you should be happy because you are doing something wonderful for yourself.

I've had a few hiccups the past few days with my own health journey. Only on the eating end of things. I just can not have 1700-2000 calorie days more than once a week! Get a hold of yourself woman!

I didn't run after my 5K until Tuesday. I realize that time off wasn't really necessary after a race of that distance but my legs were stiff and sore and I really wanted the break. Tuesday I did an easy 2 miles on the husband's granny's treadmill (more on that in a sec) and came home, popped in The Shred and proceeded to endure Jillian's tyrannical self for 20 minutes. This morning I managed to complete 2.5 miles outside before having to race home and get my middle child to vacation bible school.

I feel like I am behind on running after taking Monday off even though I made up for it on Tuesday. And I also feel kind of....lost. The 5K is over, what now? I've been viewing the Arkansas race calendar and am pondering doing the Dam Night Run at DeGray Lake in July. Also on my mind has been a 10K in Ft. Smith in November. Am I crazy to want to run a 10K? Nah. It would just be a prelude to the Little Rock Half Marathon that I am also considering. I need to just sign up for a few races so I can start following a training schedule again.

You know what? Training is about to get a whole lot easier. Instead of using Granny's treadmill or missing a run, I'll be running on my very own! The husband let me order a new one from Sears and it should be here next week. I am so excited!!!! I'm hoping to run at least 5 days a week now.

Today I am going to control my eating, ice my knee, and play outside with the kiddos.

What are you doing on this happy hump day?

Confession #3 AND #4

Confession #3: I obsess over numbers.

There I said it. Go ahead and scold me. But...I want to know exactly how far I ran in exactly what amount of time and I'm cranky if I don't.

I use a Garmin Forerunner 50 with foot pod as my only tech gadget. Definitely not top of the line as far as running companions go but it does the job. Or so I thought. When I got my Garmin I read the manual front to back and specifically read that it should not need to be calibrated to measure accurate distance. So I went with it and was running around 10-9:45 minute miles. A few more months and I could do a 9:30-9:15 minute mile. All was going well until I started to doubt my times. So I took it to the local high school track and calibrated it to the inside lane. After one loop around it showed that I had ran .35 miles. A whole 10th of a mile over what it should have been. So I dialed it down, adjusted the number and kept on running. After the calibration, my miles were coming in around 10 minutes or even sometimes 11 minutes. I just knew I couldn't have been running that slow. It felt so much faster. And then I would read here on the Internetz about these speed demons doing 6:30 miles and lord I felt slow.

Yesterday, I did a long run for me. By the time I was done, 40 minutes and 30 seconds later, my Garmin said I had only gone 3.85 miles. I was totally let down. Not even a 10 minute mile. How could that be, I really was booking it in my opinion. I hopped in the truck and decided to drive it. Exactly. As close to the sidewalk as I could. 4.3 miles later I was confused. Could there be that much of a difference? What do you think? Trust my truck or my Garmin? I think a recalibration is in my Garmin's future.

Confession #4: I ate 6 mini chocolate doughnuts for breakfast.

I entered it in my food journal on SparkPeople and am just going to deal with a not so healthy decision. I have stellar eating planned for the rest of the day and I'm not going to let the guilt get too me.

Don't Let The Guilt Get Ya Down

Yesterday's post was all about eating healthy and well and for your taste. I was slated to come in right around 1280 calories including my after dinner snack of strawberries, and guess what? The dreaded nighttime munchies got the better of me.

I had a serving of chips and salsa (would have eaten more but a serving was all that was left of the tortilla chips), and then I couldn't possibly stop there. Now that my mouth was on fire I decided what better way to cool it down than with some yummy ice cream. Two mammoth scoops of butter pecan ice cream later and I had finally silenced the munchie monster. And then....well then of course I was mad at myself for blowing all my hard work. I was angry at my lack of self-control. Then I said, "Self, you did run 3.75 miles this morning, maybe you were really just hungry and not binge eating."

Which brings me to my point. I tried really hard not to be mad at myself this morning when I woke up. I tried really hard not to let the guilt get me down. Because today is another day. A new chance. I was up bright and early mapping out my day. Running was out due to torrential flooding and continuous downpours, I know Lindsay over at Healthy Stride likes running in the rain and I do too, but I didn't think Stella would much appreciate being pushed in the jog stroller through a monsoon. So instead I did an hour of yoga and planned my eating for the day. Because today...I am back in control. The guilt isn't getting to me, honest to goodness that one bowl of ice cream isn't going to ruin all my work. An indulgence is just that, and is perfectly fine and part of a healthy diet.

Everything in moderation is a mantra of mine. Along with mind over matter. I know I am capable of anything as long as I set my mind to it. The mental blocks are the hardest.

Do you have a mental block keeping you from achieving your goals? What do you do to let go of the guilt when you have an "ooops slip up" moment?

Mileage Report & Running With Babes

{My daughter Stella & I gearing up for a jog.}

This morning I met up with my good friend Dala at our local park. The plan was for her to complete C25K W1D2 and for me to tag along. We finished her 20 minutes and walked another 1/2 mile. It was a good, easy day for me and I am glad to have the opportunity to get in more exercise and motivate a friend in the process. If I keep going with Dala for easy days that will have me being active 7 days a week! Whoa! Who would have thought? I was such a couch potato a year ago, now I can't wait to get out and do something.

Yesterday I logged 4 miles. Sunday was an easy 2.5 with Dala on her first day of C25K. With today's mileage I'm up to 8.5 miles for the week and its only Tuesday. This may not seem like a lot to you hardcore runners, but for me...it's a lot! I'm slowly and steadily working on increasing my mileage and I think this is a good start. Tomorrow I have 3 or 3.5 on the schedule.

Also yesterday was the day I chose to resume my strict eating. I cheated my booty off the past few weeks way more than I am usually allowed. So this week I am back to 1300-1500 calories a day and one cheat day after six good days. I did well with 1347 calories yesterday and I've already mapped out my calories today and it's coming in right around 1150. I might have to find a snack after dinner, maybe some yummy super low-cal strawberries just to put my calories at 1200. I don't want to eat too little and suffer from lack of energy on tomorrow morning's run.

What do you do to keep your calories low?