This is no April Fools joke…

I did 90 minutes of cardio today! I participated in Mary’s A Merry Workout Pledge. A few days ago, Mary posted on her blog that she would do 30 seconds of cardio for every comment that the post got. As Mary is a fabulous blogger and thus hugely popular… she got 180 comments! Then a bunch of people, myself included, said that we’d join her in her cardio quest.

SO, after work today I hit the gym, got on the treadmill, and ran/walked for the full 90 minutes, nonstop! The treadmills in my gym are apparently set to TURN OFF after 62 minutes (an hour + 2 minute cool down)… so I just turned mine right back on and did another 28 minutes! Thus explaining why I have two photos of the workout results…

For a grand total of… 5.41 miles! And 518 calories! I ran out of water about halfway through, which was probably the hardest thing to deal with. I listened to two This American Life podcasts, they always keep me distracted and entertained. For the first 45 minutes I alternated five minutes of running with two minutes of walking. After that I didn’t follow a strict regimen, but I was definitely walking more. The last 15 minutes I was really dragging… but I finished! Annnnd then I booked it to the water fountain.

Once I rehydrated, I did my strength training as well. My leg sets weren’t as good as usual, because my legs were so wobbly from all the cardio. But I did all my arm/back/chest/abs work.

Congrats to all of the other Merry Workout Pledge participants! Thinking about you guys definitely kept me moving on that treadmill!

P.S. Follow everyone’s workouts on Twitter: #amerryworkoutpledge

Weekly round up and weigh in!

First off, a big WELCOME to all my visitors from Prior Fat Girl! Jen is such a huge inspiration for me and I’m so excited that my photo made it on her blog! I hope you’ll stick around and join me on my journey to better health.

I realize I have been absolutely abysmal at my posting this week. It was a tough week for me physically and mentally, which I will elaborate on in another post soon. However, despite my struggles, I still managed to see a -1.3 lb loss on the scale this week! That puts me at a total of 29.1 lbs down since Christmas. I’m dying to get past 30 lbs loss and into the 100s. Hopefully that motivation will keep me going this week.

Our menu this week was a big hit. On Monday we made Lentil Goat Cheese Burgers. I had mine with some garlic hummus and baby spinach on a light hamburger bun. I also made kale chips for the first time as a side! They were delish.

Later in the week we made Mexican Slow Cooked Carnitas. I absolutely LOVE carnitas, and this version was no exception. Unfortunately I failed to take a photo 😦 but you’ll have to trust me on this one, they were fabulous. I left Jason in charge of putting the pork in the slow cooker, and he ended up adding a littttle more spice than the recipe calls for, so ours were a little hot for my taste… but he loved them! Next time I plan to follow the recipe a little more closely! I also made Southwestern Black Bean Salad. Oh. My. Gosh. Next time I’m making a double batch. This stuff was heavenly. The mix of tastes and textures was perfect, and it tasted so fresh and healthy. This is definitely going to be our go-to recipe this summer for when we need to bring something to picnics or BBQs!

Now I’m off to plan our menu for this week and run some errands. I need to go to Target or TJMaxx – all my work pants are falling off me! Woohoo! But, I’m not about to spend mucho $$ on a new wardrobe, since I don’t plan on being at this weight for long! How do you handle changes in size as you go down in weight? Do you pin your oversized pants on yourself (which is what I have been doing!) Shop at consignment stores? Let me know your tricks!

Nothing in particular

Nothing in particular of note going on this week. I had a great OP week and was down 2.2 at my WI this morning! That was with going out to eat two nights, as well. I’m happy that I’m able to work the plan so that I can go out and enjoy myself and still see a loss. That is very heartening.

I made overnight oats for the first time this week! They were quite yummy, but a little thin for my taste (I like my oats thick and chewy!) I used 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup almond milk, and 1/2 cup plain ff yogurt. In the morning I added 1/2 a banana, 1 tbsp of honey, and 1 tbsp of peanut butter. It was extremely filling. I ate it at 9ish, went for a run, ran errands and got my hair cut, and came home at 2 pm and still wasn’t hungry!

I also tried to make a smoothie this morning before yoga. That was a bit more difficult than I expected. I used frozen strawberries, frozen raspberries, frozen blueberries and frozen pineapple, 1/2 cup almond milk, 1/2 cup of water, 1 tbsp of honey, and one tbsp of chia seeds. I don’t know if we just have a crappy blender or what, but getting those frozen berries chopped up smoothly too FOREVER. I kept having to open the blender and push the chunks down towards the blades. It’s a Cuisinart, which usually makes good appliances, so I don’t know. Maybe it’s supposed to be that hard to make a smoothie?!

And YES! You did see me mention Chia seeds up there! I ordered them from Amazon and they came on Friday. Jason asked me what the “chia pet seeds” were for. Hah! I couldn’t really taste them in the smoothie, but I think that’s the point. I’m going to add them to my oats tomorrow morning.

Tonight we’re making Gina’s Spinach Lasagna Rolls. Yum! I’m so happy to have found Gina’s site. Sometimes I feel like I’ve looked through all the recipes on the WW site 1000 times already. But Gina’s recipes are all OP and consistently yummy!

Jason’s birthday is Tuesday, so his family is bringing cake over after dinner and we’re all going to watch a movie. His mom is an awesome baker, so I’ve been counting my points verrrry carefully today to be sure I can have some cake!! Next Saturday J and I are going to Baltimore for the day to check out some restaurants he’s heard about up there. By “heard about” I mean “saw on the Food Network”. Either on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives or The Best Thing I Ever Ate. Clearly it will not be the easiest day to stay OP… but the hubs only has a birthday once a year… plus he’s been an angel about eating all my WW recipes!  Between our food stops, we’re going to check out the American Visionary Art Museum, which got rave reviews from my friend Leah.

Sorry for the boring post and dearth of pictures (I’m trying to be better about taking pictures, really!) Hopefully I’ll have something more exciting to report on later in the week!

P.S. Please check out my post on little Jackson and donate if you have the ability!! On Thursday his parents/doctors decided that the best course of action is another round of chemo and then on to radiation. He is such a trooper!

A Book a Month: February 2010

I’m doing well on goal #3… which is good, since if I was already falling behind on my book a month goal after just two months… well. There’d be a problem.

In February I read a book that I’d been looking forward to for a few years, “Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage”, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Gilbert’s first book, “Eat Pray Love” is one of my all time favorites. Cliche, I know, but it is! I love traveling and introspection and memoirs, so it hit a few sweet spots. While “Committed” picks up pretty much where “Eat Pray Love” left off, I wouldn’t call it a memoir, it’s more of a study on the Western history and assumptions about marriage. Gilbert warns the reader up front that the book is not the same as “Eat Pray Love”, so there should be no disappointment if you choose to read past the first chapter. However, while the narrative is not as compelling, Gilbert is still honest, thoughtful, and occasionally funny. It’s like having a serious conversation with an old, dear friend.

While I consider myself a feminist, I have to be honest that I didn’t give a ton of thought to getting married. I never felt that I NEEDED to get married to be a complete person or anything like that, but I also never feared (modern, Western) marriage as an oppressive institution.  I figured if I met someone I wanted to marry, I would… and I did.  “Committed” definitely made me think about the way we base all of society around this institution, and how what conservatives consider “traditional” marriage… isn’t actually all that traditional at all. Actually, it’s a relatively new innovation across the spectrum of human history. Many incarnations of marriage in the distant and not-so-distant past would be considered near heretic by most conservatives today!  Basically, society continuously recreates the definition of marriage to fit the norms and mores of the day.

If you enjoyed “Eat Pray Love”, I would recommend “Committed”. It didn’t hold my attention quite as well, but there were many interesting anecdotes and Gilbert is as good a writer as ever. Plus, you get to find out what happens between her and Felipe!

Heartbreak and Hope

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m running my first 5k in May – The Race for Hope.  The race is a fundraiser benefiting the National Brain Tumor Society and Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure. I’ll be completely honest, when I signed up for the 5k, I did so because it was the one that worked best with my C25K training schedule.

A few weeks ago, though, I started reading the The Dundon’s Nest. It’s a blog written by a mom in my area. She and her husband have two adorable little boys – Jackson is 2 1/2 and Mason is 4 months. In January, she noticed that Jackson was having trouble with his balance, so they took him to the doctor and then to Children’s Hospital here in DC.  An MRI revealed a parent’s worst nightmare – a tumor on Jackson’s brain stem.

Jackson is a HUGE Washington Capitals fan, and tshirts designed after their logo are for sale at CafePress to raise money for his treatment. I ordered one, and then I emailed his mom, Kristin, and told her that I was running the 5k and that I’d like to do the run in honor of Jackson. Luckily, she was totally on board and sent me some of her favorite Jackson photos to share with everyone. Here’s the precious little boy who I will be running the 5k for:

Jackson and the whole Dundon family have been so brave and positive through this struggle. They are truly inspiring. He has gone through chemo and lost his hair, and this Thursday he has a follow-up MRI to see how the chemo is working. Please keep them in your thoughts on Thursday!

If you’d like to support Jackson by donating to the race you can do so by clicking here.

You can also join Jackson’s Facebook Support Group, or donate directly to his recovery fund:

The Jackson Dundon Recovery Fund
c/o Kerry Donley
609 N. Pickett Street
Alexandria, VA 22304

A Sunday kind of love…

Sooooo weigh in this morning. -0.5. Not quite as exciting as LAST weekend… but a loss is a loss, right?  I feel like I am being taunted by the 25 lb mark.. Ohhhh hooo here, have 24.2… now, 24.8! Gah! Once I’m past 25 lbs lost for two consecutive weeks I’m treating myself to a massage – I can’t wait!

I did W7D1 outside yesterday morning – my first outdoor run! Gotta say, for all the whining runners do about how running inside is… running outside is not what it’s cracked up to be.  First of all, it’s warmed up considerably from a few weeks ago, but it was still about 45* when I went out. My lungs were NOT pleased with the huffing and the puffing of the cold air – that hurts! I have no idea how the people who run through the winter do it.  Second, hello hard pavement! Yeow, do my shins hurt this morning after that. I’m taking an extra day before my next run to let them heal. The last thing I need is chronic shin splints! I got all 25 minutes of running in, though not consecutively, I admit. I hope it gets a little warmer soon. I might try the track up at the high school next time, I figure it’ll be easier on my shins. But I have to get used to road running sometime soon – my 5k in May is ALL on roads. Any pointers on how to ease myself in??

After my run I went to lunch with my dear friend and former roommate, Leah. She and her hubby are expecting baby #1 in July! It’s a boy! I am so excited for them. She looks great and is really loving being pregnant. Leah is one of my WW role models. Back in college/right after, she lost over 70 lbs, and has kept it all off! I meant to take a cute photo of her with her baby bump, but I totally forgot. 😦

This morning I woke up bright and early (ok, more like 9:00) to hydrate and eat in time for an 11:00 Bikram class! The heat was definitely more tolerable this time. I enjoyed it so much, that I took the dive and bought a 15 class pass! So you may be hearing a lot more about my Bikram activities. I’ll try to get a photo sometime of how crazy sweaty I am when I come out of there.

I’m going to go pick up some Chinese take-out in a bit for DH and I to enjoy while we watch the Oscars tonight. I’d like to see “The Hurt Locker” or “Inglourious Basterds” win Best Picture… but really as long as it’s NOT Avatar, I’ll be happy!

Have a good Monday everyone!

Finished Week 6!!

Today I went to the gym and completed W6D3 of the C25K training – I ran for a full 25 minutes! At the beginning of January, I could hardly run for 90 seconds! I love this program! Albeit, I’m not terribly FAST yet… but we’ll work on that.

In a good routine

This week has been going pretty well. On Monday I swam for 40 minutes and yesterday I did W6D2 of my C25K training, plus the nautilus weight machines.  Yesterday’s run was MUC better than Sunday’s. There were two ten minute runs and I was able to increase my speed on both of them and felt great. Taking today off, and doing W6D3 run tomorrow – I can’t wait! It’s a full 25 minute run straight through, so I’m a little nervous, but mostly excited. I think that’s the most I’ve EVER run. Ever.

We had a ton of leftovers so not doing a ton of cooking this week. DH did try a turkey sausage and sauerkraut recipe yesterday, but it was kind of gross, unfortunately! I DID try a new veggie this week – brussel sprouts!

I sauteed them with some EVOO and then splashed balsamic vinegar on them at the end and let it caramelize a little. It smelled amazing!

Looked pretty yummy, too! The flavor with the balsamic vinegar was great, unfortunately, the insides of the sprouts were pretty tasteless. Like plain raw cabbage, kind of. Not terrible but not great. DH wasn’t terribly impressed, either. The outside layers of them were really yummy, though!

At my gym I participate in something called FitLinxx. It’s a computer program that is hooked up to all of the weight machines and tracks what/how much you lift. You also manually enter all cardio workouts you do. You get points based on your workouts (I don’t know the exact formula.) The gym has a bulletin board where they post monthly results by age group… and GUESS who was NUMBER ONE for 20-29 year olds in February!

Yep, that’s yours truly on the top of the list! Full first name and all. And my sister in law is number five! She’s working on getting in shape for her wedding in September.

Now, of course, I just need to make sure I STAY there in March!

Fantabulous weigh in, and other Sunday goodness

I hopped on the scale this morning and was completely bowled over with what I saw… 208.8 – that’s a 4.4 lb loss! And much lower than any of the peeks I took during the week 😉 I considered chalking it up to water weight from Bikram yesterday, but I drank a TON of water all yesterday and last night so I can’t imagine that is the entire explanation. This WI means I have lost 24.2 lbs, and I’ve passed 10% of my starting weight! Of course, I got a tsk tsk message from Weight Watchers about losing too fast when I tracked my weight… but whatever, this totally makes up for last week’s measly 0.8 loss.

For breakfast I had a Thomas Light Whole Wheat English Muffin with peanut butter (3 pts) and dried apricots and prunes (2 pts) to get some protein and sugar in me before hitting the gym.

Then I put together a grocery list on my iPhone with the GroceryIQ App (It’s awesome, it has way more functionality than I need, and much more convenient than crossing things off a piece of paper when you’re in the store. Plus, it saves your favorite items!) and headed off for my Sunday gym/grocery store run. I did the W6D1 C25K workout on the treadmill at the gym – 5 minute warm up walk, 5 minute run, 3 minute walk, 8 minute run, 3 minute walk, 5 minute run, 5 minute cool down walk. Not gonna lie, I was not feeling it this morning. Even though last time (W5D3) was a full 20 minute run, and this was only 18 minutes, split up, I just felt so tired and like I could not catch my breath the whole time. My HR was consistent though, so it must have been mental. Also, my hamstrings were killing me from yoga yesterday! Hopefully I’ll be back in the groove for W6D2 on Tuesday! After that I did my circuit on the weight machines, which takes about 35 minutes, for a total of 6 APs. Here’s my sweaty mug post workout glow, as inspired by Jen over at Prior Fat Girl:

Maybe if you’re lucky I’ll snap one after Bikram next week. That’s a special glow in a category all its own. After the gym, I hit the grocery store. I worked this week’s menu around stuff we already have in the fridge, so there wasn’t a whole lot to pick up. Hopefully my running-pants-clad arse didn’t scare too many people. Then I dashed home, put the groceries away, showered and plopped my bum on the couch to watch the USA vs. Canada gold medal hockey game! Now, hockey is not a sport I typically follow, but what a great game! And while I’m bummed that the US lost, I have to admit, I think it’s pretty great that Canada won gold in their sport on their home turf.

For dinner I heated up some left over black bean burgers with low fat cheddar sprinkled on them, and organic ketchup, and sliced up a sweet potato for baked sweet potato fries. Yummmm. I love my husband, but I think one of the strangest things about him is that he doesn’t like sweet potatoes! Who doesn’t like sweet potatoes?

Also, to my dismay, our Girl Scout cookie order was dropped off today… dum dum dum. I’m hoping since DH works from home he’ll eat most of them before I can be tempted. Hah. Also I’ll stash them in the freezer where a binge is less likely. My mouth is watering just thinking about the Samoas…

It’s getting hot in herrrrrr

This morning I got up early (8 am on a Saturday is early for me, okay?!) and drank 60 oz. of water, because I had a 10 am Bikram Yoga class to get to! Apparently I’m a glutton for punishment. If you’re not familiar, Bikram Yoga is 90 minutes of yoga performed in a 105 degree room. My sister has been raving about it for awhile now, so I figured I would give it a go. I did some research and found Bikram Yoga of Alexandria, which got great reviews on Yelp and is helpfully only about 10 minutes from my house. Also their website claims you burn 700+ calories in a session – chaching!

So, I packed myself, yoga mat, towel, two washcloths and an additional 50 oz. of water into my car in search of enlightenment and serious calorie burning.  I got there early, being a newbie and figuring that the Saturday classes might be a little crowded. Well. “A little” is an understatement. By 10 to 10 they were turning people away! The studio was full, there were probably 40-50 people there. And not gonna lie. It was HOT.  The website recommends that women wear a sports bra and workout shorts or tights… but I gotta be honest, my abs are no where NEAR ready for primetime! So I layered a light t-shirt over… which was quite promptly drenched through. But, it was definitely a good workout. And I achieved my goal of neither passing out or vomiting, so I consider it an overall success. I will be going back. And, from what I hear, the second class is much easier than the first.

In weight loss news, I have a weigh in tomorrow morning, and I’m really hoping to crack 20 lbs lost – I’m at 19.8 right now, so close!! 20 lbs is also a quarter of the way to goal. Then when I hit 23.3 down, I’ll have lost 10% of my starting body weight – so hopefully I can knock off those next few in the coming weeks.