Hoping to need this one day!

8 Answers to Common 5K Questions

I've realized...

weekends are the hardest on my eating habits.  I don't know what it is but when friday evening hits I just feel like it's time to loosen the belt a little, but its a really bad habit.  I'm not sure exactly how to break it.  It's not like I just go free for all crazy, but ya know, just a couple meals can really screw up the weigh in. *sigh*  I haven't been logging my food on here like I wanted to.  Come to find out, it's kinda hard to find time to blog on the weekends too!
Let me see: I'll try to remember what I ate yesterday first-

Breakfast: Coffee and a Kellogs 100 cal fruit crisp pack.
Lunch: Half of a veggie egg substitute omelet  (with colby cheese), half of a sweet potato pancake (with brown sugar butter but no syrup), and half of a biscuit with butter and jelly. 
Dinner: A WW frozen dinner (not lunch, dinner.  The new ones that come in the bag so they are ever so slightly more food)
Dessert: After MUCH deliberation and craveration: 2 servings of junior mints (6 grams of fat).

Huh. I remembered.  Who knew?

Today: Ick.....not steller....
Breakfast: Coffee
Lunch: (Cue me hiding my face behind my hands and whispering...) Arby's SMALL Roast Beef and Cheddar sandwich and....and...and curly fries. I know, I'm sorry!  I'm stupid!  I'm weak! But in my defense, I had the WOOOOORST morning with the sick kids and the drs and and and...sucky me. Meh.
Dinner:  (Extra good to make up for lunch :D) a piece of skinless grilled chicken, a bowl of lettuce and mushrooms, and some lowfatf frozen mixed veggies with cheese sauce.
Dessert: TBD (to be determined)

Ok, enough about food!! Lol  Lets talk about me being awessoooooome at keeping on my running schedule!!  I went Saturday:

Hee hee!  Being silly... :)

 Then Sunday I went to Zumba and tonight my sister came over and went running together!  It was fun having a partner!  And went by so fast!  I think my endurance is definitely getting better every time!  Woop!  Woop!

XO,
a

Winning!

Last night I had Zumba (which I rocked and sweated out about..mmmmm56lbs <---slight exaggeration) and afterward, I had to stop at the grocery store (Kroger) for something quick and semi healthy for the fam.  So, I decided on Weight Watcher dinner size meals for the hubby and I and Kids Cuisines for the kiddos (Hey!  I said semi-healthy!  If you're judging me, I'm judging your mom!). I grabbed a box of my standby low fat sweet tooth curber: Junior Mints.  But I was craving something more....something...real....something...cakey, and gooey and ...fattening.  I wanted all of this but I didn't want to kill my friday weigh in.  So, I preceded to go down every aisle and pick up every yummy gooey delicious thing I saw and read the back.  Time and time again, I dropped it like it was on FIRE!  Um, 12 grams of fat for a brownie: EEK!  A mounds Bar: 13 grams of fat! AGHGHGH! A (tiny) piece of LOW FAT Skinny Cow Candy: 6 GRAMS OF FAT! No thanks!!  I can have 32 Junior mints for that many fat grams!  So, I moped my way up to the cash registers and left.  No ice cream; no Belgium Chocolate walnut brownie bites (YUMMMM!); no big red heart box of Valentines chocolate.  It was definitely a winning moment.  It sucked. Do. Not. Get. It. Twisted.  I REALLY wanted to eat something...normal.  But as I found out, for me, Normal=waaaay too much fat.  As annoyed as I was when I walked out the door of Kroger, by the time I had gotten to the car, I had realized:   Cravings: 0 Me:1

Winning!

REMIND ME TO TELL U ABOUT THE AWESOMENESS THAT WAS ME IN KROGER JUST NOW!

That's right.  Me and the pavement have a date tomorrow morning.  I didn't get to do my run today since, I suck it didn't work out with Micheal's schedule.  It's gonna take some real thinking out of the box to figure in my runs.  I really can't see me running pushing the stroller like I used to picture. It's hard enough by myself!!  But I'll figure it out! Where there's a will, there's a way.  Hey sometimes, the moment calls for a cliche, ok!?!? 
Anywho, I can't wait to break in my new winter running gear I picked up tonight!  Ain't it cute!?
Nighty Night Blogville.

Good evening world!  As promised today the following things were put in mah belly:

•  Breakfast: 4 eggs whites and 1/4 cup low fat cheddar cheese.
• Lunch: Half pack of Kellogs Fruit Crisps (aka 1 fruit crisp) 50 cals, 1g fat
• Dinner: We went to one of my favorite restaurants, Carrabba's, and I had my 'splurge meal' of the week.  The good news? I only ate half! :)  And took pics to prove it!
• Dessert:  A cup of rice pudding with cinnamon: 130cals, 3g fat

OMG. So good!  Chicken Trio, I love you.  Unfortunately, you don't love me!  Fatty fatty chicken!  But did I mention how ridiculously good it was. 

See?  Half of it was still on the plate!  This is what I brought home in a box for Micheal. :)

Mmmmm.

So, there tis. A (splurge) day in the life of my belly.  Fyi- from here on out you'll see much healthier dinners.  This is sooo not my norm! 


On an interesting note, I put on a shirt that I haven't had on in many many months and...it fit me like a freakin' dress!  I couldn't believe it!  I mean, it wasn't tight before but it was kinda form fitting and definitely did NOT slide down over my hips!  Yay!  Whats that you say?  You wish I took a picture?  Well, asamatteroffact.....


On the left is the picture of me wearing this shirt last Christmas.  I have to apologize because its a really crappy photo but after MUCH digging (b/c I love u that much!) it was the one and only I could find! :(  So pay attention to the roll and to where it falls on my hips:

 On the right is me tonight!  Crazy difference!  Can you see it?  Shocking!  Shocking I tell you!  (Ya like how I put the phone in front of my face bc I had no makeup on? I'm vain sneaky like that. :) )

 Oh, and ps, those jeans on the left that are giving me that awesome muffin top/roll?  They fall off now!  BAM!

Last night I was in the halftime show at MTSU with some of the area Zumba ladies!  It was fun.  I won't lie to you, blog.  I was a little self conscious.  A little for my weight and a little because apparently someone forgot to give me the memo that everyone was wearing black tops. I? I was wearing an electric blue top! Oh well.  Out of our group from our class of 12 there were 3 of us not in black.  It really wasn't that big of a deal...I don't know why it bothered me so much.  Either way, it really was fun.  I like seeing all the different types of girls that do Zumba in my community.  We even had 3 senior citizens that take a Zumba gold class come and participate. They were so cute!  Here's a couple pics from last night! 

Oh!  Guess what!  It's Friday!  Woop! Woop!  (I was so busy crying about the damn scale I almost forgot ...its almost the weekend! Yay!)

Here's me before I left!  Feeling kinda cute, I gotta say!

This is our group of people that came from our classes. (Notice the 3 little old ladies! Love 'em! Hee hee)

Me and my best Zumba friend, Kim! She got me hooked! :D

Us on the the court!  (I'm in the blue on left! Lol)

So frustrated....

Morning dear blog of mine!  Today is Friday which is weigh day.  According to that jerk of a scale I am up a lb from last weak.  I literally do not know HOW that is possible.  I am so disappointed.  I have excercised more this week than I have the whole time I've been doing this diet/eating healthy lifestyle whatever you wanna call it. Almost every. single. day. I weighed in on Friday did not excersice on saturday and then: 

• Sunday: Ran/walked a hard hilly mile
• Tuesday: 1 hour of Zumba
• Wednesday Ran/walked around 2 miles (breaking my personal very wimpy record!)
• Thursday: 30 mins of Zumba in the a.m. and then 2 songs of Zumba in the p.m. (more to come on that)

So, I exercised 4 out of 6 days.  I usually do 2 out of 6. (Just realized that I'm not really counting friday and it should be counted somewhere so I guess really it's 4 out of 7. :/ )
This is the worst feeling in the pit of my stomach.  It's like why do I deny myself all the yummy things that everyone else is eating for the scale to go up!?!?  I truly don't understand.  I guess there can be made an argument for a little muscle being created somewhere in the world of flab that is my body, but I just find that kinda hard to believe when I still have so so much to lose.  An argument could also be made that it could have to do with my *ahem* monthly.
It's kind of surprising to me that despite everyone noticing my weight loss lately and how great I've felt all week...that number on the scale has really taken the wind out of my sails.  I wish you guys could see what I'm eating...and NOT eating!!  Hmmm, I think for 1 week, I'll log here what I eat every day.  Every single bite.  It would be really great for you (and embarrassing for me) to see what I used to eat. Oh. Em. Gee. So naughty, bad delicious food.  *sigh* I miss it.  But not as much as I would have thought, really.


Eh, ok, upward and onward.  Today I will do day 2 of my couch to 5K...somewhere, somehow since the weather is really not cooperating.  (Who starts a running program in January anyway!!!? smh Me!) 
Hmmm....really gonna have to brainstorm on how to get that done today!

This is my theme song through my weight loss journey.  Slowly but surely....I'm Feeling Good.
Enjoy!

xo,
a

A night I will not soon forget...

So I had a kinda crappy day.  I haven't talked much about my babies so far, but I have 3 and sometimes....I feel very outnumbered.  I had such a stressful day.  After The Prince was in rare form all day I went and picked up the girls from school to bring them to the dentist, only to get there and decide they were both really too sick (with a bad cough) to get their teeth sealed so I drove all the way out there for *almost* nothing.  *Almost.* Just so happens the gym we belong to was right down the street...and I just happened to bring my running stuff.  :D

My husband got off work a little early and took the kids so I could go to the gym and do day 2 of the couch to 5k program on their indoor track.  I did day 1 on Sunday morning. FYI- Sunday I did a full mile but it was NOT the end of the actual session.  Anyway, I felt really weird being in the gym  and going onto the track.  There was a lot of older people and during my warm up, they were walking faster than me!  And I was really walking!  So, how it works (right now) is a 5 min warm up walk followed by increments of 60 secs of jogging and 90 secs of walking.  Sounds easy right?  Wrong.  It is SO hard.  So, I started my program and I was off walking for my warm up.  Well, I'd been walking for quite awhile when I looked down and realized my app was paused!!!  And then I realized there is no way to skip the warm up! So, I pretty much had to do it twice!  I swear I think I did close to a mile just walking.  Finally I got all the kinks out and started running.  It felt good. At first.  I got tired a lot faster than I did on Sunday and by the 3rd set of running, I knew...I was done.  It wasn't going to happen today.  But. BUT.  I decided I COULD do ONE more set (60 secs running/90 secs walking).  I was dying.  Dy.Ing.  But. BUT. I decided I could do ONE more set again.  There are 8 sets.  I was on 5.  I was panting and gasping and the thought of finishing....just to finish....literally brought tears to my eyes.  I kept on pushing for one more set until...I finished all 8.  All 8!!  I still can't believe it.  It sounds so silly telling you this now, but in the moment. Ah, in the moment I felt like I just did something very very important.  I had never ever pushed myself like that.  Not me, not by myself, for myself.   It was amazing and I will never forget the feeling of knowing I had finally done it.  I've tried the couch 2 5K so many times.  And I always (b a r e l y) make a mile, but I have NEVER finished the whole session.  Progress people. Progress. 

This would be me 2 mins after I finished.  I was still gasping and have no idea how I managed a smile!

Aaaaaand to top off me tooting my own horn up in here:  I also got it arranged so I can go to Zumba tomorrow morning which to make a long story short, is me going WAY out of my way to get those calories burned!  Woop! Woop!

xo,
a

The greatest thing happened yesterday!  I found my original 'before' picture I took in my Zumba clothes!  I have since stopped wearing these (maternity!!!!) pants and now am on my 2nd pair of yoga pants because what?!?  My first pair got too big! :)  Anyway anyway anyway, back to the point!  I found that first picture that I took when I FIRST started Zumba...probably if I had to guess, I would say it was taken in April of 2011.  I actually started Z in March but I'm wearing a Z shirt in this so I'm sure it was at least a few weeks in.  So, I put on the same outfit and took a pic for you! :)  Ok, and me.  When I was in my bathroom taking said pic I was totally thinking..."I look like a freakin' cow.  This is going to be the worst comparison pic ever." But I must say once I put them side by side, I was pleasantly surprised !  My favorite part?  The legs. Whaaaa!?!?  I know!  I mean, I know I took the 2nd one at a totally different angle (and once I get in this outfit when it's not dark outside, I'll try to take it in the same exact spot at the same angle), but I don't think the angle can take that big of a differenct in my legs!  There is so much more room between them.  Whoa. That. Is. Nuts. BTW, I have no idea why I decided to make the face of someone having a mugshot made in the first picture!  Sorry about that! Anywho, I can forealdoe see a difference...everywhere.  I mean everything looks a tiiiiny bit smaller.

On another note...I finally was able to get on the scale b/c ...well, ya know.  And I was so pissed!!!!  It said I am up 2lbs! :( :( :(  I can NOT believe that.  Ugh.  All I can do is hope its high water weight day and keep doing what I'm doing....(which is) my best.  But for serious...what a buzz kill.


Thought I'd add a picture of one of my normal Zumba outfits.  I *never* wear those ^ gray pants anymore.

^^ Still a LOT of work to be done!!!^^

Deuces,
a

Zumba Partay Night...

Zumba party tonight!  Woop woop!  Have I mentioned Zumba is my favorite and a good part of the reason I have lost weight? Tonight we're doing a New year kick off party with prizes and discounted punch cards and most of all lots of fun booty shaking! 
What's that you say?  You were wondering about my sneak peek at the scale this morning???  Well, you are going to be quite disappointed.  No, I didn't gain (that I know of!).  But I couldn't weigh in. :o/  Hmmm, how I can I explain this....yeah, there's no way to put this delicately so I'm just gonna say it....I haven't used the bathroom since thurs night!!! I don't feel uncomfortable at all, but no weigh (< I made a funny) I'm getting on the scale knowing that everything I've eaten for the past 4 days (almost 5) is still in me!!!  Nope.  Not gonna do it.  I don't know whats going on with my system the last couple weeks but I have started yesterday drinking Metamucil every morning.  So far....nothin'.  Hmmm, at what point do you get a little nervous!?!?  Maybe I'll dance it out tonight!  AGH!  I am stopping this subject now!  It is my very least favorite and I am still in shock that I even told you guys about my new 'issue.'  But really, how else could I explain not weighing this morning?  I always check my weight by Tues.  *sigh*  

Anywho, I'll try to get a pic of me in my 'Zumbawear' and post later!  It's tight and you can see my fatness in all it's glory! Yay.

The weekend roundup...

Good evening fine people of the blogasphere! I had a pretty great weekend!  Well, Saturday started out not so great, I truly thought I had pancreatitis and went to urgent care where they told me I wasn't in enough pain for it to be pancreatitis.  Apparently they were right, because I'm fine!  Then Saturday night me and the fam tried a new church, which we really liked!  We're really going to try to start going every Saturday night.  It's a Christian church, but they offer Saturday night OR Sunday morning services, which for a sleep loving family like mine = awesomeness!  Unfortunately, I DID have a splurge meal after church.  I had chicken picatta and to say it was yummy just doesn't do it justice!  I also had bread.......ok and 1ONE little (largish) margarita!  Gosh, stop looking at me like that!!  I told you I have to live!  (If you're judging me, I'm judging your mom!)
Sunday I got up and decided to go for a run. It is one of my ultimate goals in this life of mine to run (whaaaa?!?) that's right RUN a 5k!  I think about it. A lot. I've tried the couch to 5k program a few times but never followed through.  Now that I'm over 40lbs lighter, it seems like a good time to give it another go!  It went extremely well!  I did a mile, doing 60 sec jogs broke up by 90 sec walks.  The first half was extremely easy and I thought I had it made!  The 2nd half was much harder but I did it!  Every time that mean ass British woman said "Start running."  I did. :)  I got done so quick, my girls were like, "Wow! Mom that was fast!" :) I am so very VERY sore. Like, I don't want to go pee b/c of the pain in my legs when I go to sit and get back up- sore. Ouch! 
Sunday, the girls had an extra long girl scout meeting that just so happens to be in front of my parents house so I dropped them and hung out at my parents all day.  I FINALLY tried to make that pico de gillo that I talked about like a week ago.  I washed and chopped and diced and measured, and? And it was so bleeping hot that NO ONE could eat it except for my crazy husband!  Not even my dad and certainly not sensitive sally - ME!  I was so so disappointed and HUNGRY dang it!  So I ended up digging out a yogurt from my moms fridge to hold me over for dinner.  Everyone else was eating this delicious dip my mom has recently started making which included demon ingrediants such as but not limited to: mayonaise, whole fat cream cheese and shredded cheddar.  Ugh. It. is. so. good.  But, I dipped my finger in once just for a tiny taste and then ate my yogurt! *high fives all around*  I needed to save all my cals and fat grams for dinner because it was my sisters birthday dinner at, of all places, a delicious italian pizzeria: NYNY PIzza! So I pretty much didn't eat all day b/c I knew there would be some serious eating going on there.  In the end, I don't think I did so shabby.  I ate 2 pieces of veggie pizza without the crust and 1 mini cannoli.  Old me?  Umm, 1-2 garlic knots, 3 pieces of pizza, a mini-cannoli, a piece of bday cake AND the boy's left over cannoli!  So, ya see?  I did good! :) 
Tomorrow I'm planning on doing a little scale sneak peek.  If you are very very nice and say please I may give u access to said sneak peek. Here's hoping!

PS. I just looked down at my hand and it looks thinner!  There are 2 things to take notice of in this picture: 1) Obviously: my wedding rings are on my middle finger.  When I'm at home, this is pretty much where they stay now.  They are WAAAAY too big on me!  YAY!  And 2) The main thing I just noticed:  that little wrist bone sticking out!  Hey there, little fella!  Haven't seen you in a decade or so! :D


XO,
a

Swoon...

Oh my heck!  How adorable is this suit!?!?  It's from Nordstroms.  The largest size they sell? 16.  I should totally be able to do that!  Hell, I should be able to be in a smaller size than that!  That's almost 4 months...I should be 40lbs less....please please please....

Hmmmm, I'm liking the turquoise.  Yes. Yes please, I'd like the turquoise in a size 14 on May 1st, please! :)  Done. Easy peasy.

Edited to add: Just went back to the site and it says purchase one size larger than your usual size. WTF is that about!?!!?  Is that how *normal* stores are now. *sigh* Fine. Size 16.  But that's my final offer!

Putting your mind to it....works....

Agh!  This day has flown by!  I wanted to drop by super quick in the midst of folding the largest laundry pile know to man to tell you.....I DID IT! :)  I lost like 5 or 6 lbs...all I know is I am now .5lb less then I was at the beginning of last week!  Woohoo! Normally I would not be happy about a half pound loss BUT the scale today reads 5lbs less then it did on Monday.  I am definitely going to celebrate that and keep doing what I'm doing.  Brings my current total to 43.5!  Tonight we're just gonna have a family night at home.  Exciting, right?!?   I'm actually looking forward to it because it seems like all we've been doing here lately is running around!  Oh!  I'm also going to be trying to make Pico de Gillo from scratch and see how that goes.  It's super healthy by itself so I'm thinking its a good Friday night snack with some BAKED tostitos! :)  I'll let you know if I pull it off.  Enjoy your friday night!


<3,
a

The scale is calling me....

It's taunting me.  I've had an amazing 3 days straight.  Usually by now, I would've messed up and 'splurged' at least once, but I've been so so strong.  I think I just want it off.  I want this weight OFF.  After 3 days of being so SO good and not cheating at all, I swear I feel like I should look in the mirror and see a huge difference from Monday!  Lol It's really hard to describe how one minute I feel like I can't believe this is it.  I'm doing it.  Changing my body into something new after 10 years!  But then some days I'm like geeeeeeezzz.  I've been trying doing this healthy eating zumba loving lifestyle for EVAH!!!  Come on fat!  Get off!!!!!!   But I must remember:

So, back to the scale- here's the deal.  Friday is my 'official' weigh in day.  I do it on Friday so that the weekends are a tad bit more forgiving.  I have to live, ya know?   I usually have an unofficial check in with myself on the scale on Monday or Tuesday, just to kind of keep myself...well...in check!  But today is Thursday and I really want to see if/what I've lost, but I don't know.  Why do I want to make myself wait....?  I guess because I want tomorrow to be something really great and maybe with Zumba and all, I'll be a half lb lighter tomorrow than I am today!! :D

God I have high hopes.  Ya see, last TUESDAY I weighed in at a whopping 7lb loss from the previous Thursday (ya with me?  following? )!  I was on cloud freakin' 9!!!  I was just coming off a really bad case of bronchitis and all I could think was all that coughing must've burnt the hell out of some calories!  (This is hard to admit---->) But then by Friday it was up!  The scale was UP!!!  I kinda know why. I got a little too cocky with accidentally losing 7 lbs in 4 days and all and was eating a little (a lot) too much.  I don't even remember how much it jumped up but I want to say...5 lbs!!  Ugh!  I wanted to cry!!  WTF?!?!  I don't know if I got a bad read on that low weight day or got lucky or what but I've been fighting tooth (salad) and nail (water) ever since friday to get that number back down.  So, that's my goal guys.  Gotta get back to that glorious number from last Tues.  *please please please*


Today is my crazy day: pick the girls up from school, run over to gymnastics, run back home, make something edible for them, then go to zumba at 7!  I'm pretty sure it's a weight loss kind of day! I will update you in approx 24 hours with the results of my very hard work this week!  *fingers crossed*

Hey! Remember me......?

No?  I don't blame you!  The weirdest thing has happened since the last time I wrote.  I have been losing weight like crrrrrazy! :)  Man, I seriously regret not blogging for the last 3 and a half months!! CRAP!  I don't even know where to begin to tell you what I have been doing.  Let's try catching up in bullet form, yes? Yes.

• October: I went to Gulf Shores and came home and decided enough is enough!  As soon as I got back I got on track...in a very fierce way.
• November: I tiptoed through the minefield that is my birthday and Thanksgiving and still came out weighing less than I did at the beginning of the month!  Woop woop!!
• December:  Ahhh, December.  It could have been worse.  I think I weighed less at the end of the month than the beginning.  But all that baking and festivitiness!!  It did take its toll.  
• January: That's now!  See just like that we are all caught up! :)  Ok, ok, how much have I lost!?!?  Right?  Well, I went back and looked at my weight journal and it seems that when I started this blog I had lost around 15 lbs since March.  Now?  Drum roll please!!!
  
  
  I have lost 43lbs total!!!!
  It's crazy, right!??!  Here's a before and.....hmmm, we'll call it 'during' because I am no where ready for an after pic!  Lol

  

  October 3rd, 2011

  

  January 1st, 2012

  
  
  
    So, in all honesty, it's not the best comparison.  In the one on the left I am in baggy clothes with no makeup and in the right I'm in tighter form fitting clothes and my dear husband is probably hiding part of my fatness behind his side, but these were the only 2 body shots from Sept and January I could find.  I'll try to do better in the future!  Promise!  If I am being really really honest, I don't see as much as a difference as I'd like to see and I really don't look as different as I feel.  My clothes from Sept are falling off me now!  It's an amazing feeling...and knowing it's only going to get looser better is the best feeling of all! 

 Hmmm, maybe a face shot to see a difference?? Lets see:

  

 April 2011                                                                             November 2011

Again, I don't really see as much of a difference as I thought I would.  I didn't really have a good face pic from now so this one on the right is from Thanksgiving.  I've probably lost 10 lbs or so since then.  Maybe my face looks thinner now! : )  I'll try to upload a more recent pic soon!