Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Back At It

Hey peeps! I'm back and going to be blogging more regularly again. Things have been super busy - but in a good way. I have 3 weeks left of my first semester for the after school program! I can't believe how fast the time is flying! I'm getting ready and excited to start the next semester of the program!

We had a great Thanksgiving filled with lots of friends, family and food! As of yesterday, the hubby and I got back on track with our nutrition (set at 1600 calories/day-ish) and I'm already feeling better. Dropped 3lbs of water weight overnight so I'm happy about that! I'm hoping to keep things on track for the next few weeks and hopefully get a good head start on the holiday season - so Christmas isn't so hard this year.

I haven't been able to run since before I was sick - and that's okay with me. I know my limitations and I'm not going to push it. I need to stay healthy for my classes and anything beyond that is totally extra.

In other news, I've been researching renewing my PT Cert which is due at the end of April this year. I can't believe its already been almost 2 years since I finished that program! EEP! Time really is flying! I've got to complete a few more CEU credits and renew my CPR/AED cert before that's done, so I'll be looking to get a start on that in the next few weeks.

Also, the hubby and I have talked about finishing our Bachelor's Degree programs and we think we found an online program that will work best for both of us and allow us to finish school at our own pace (i.e. I can theoretically finish faster than the 8 semesters) All the books are included with the cost of tuition, so I won't need to shell out extra cash for books whenever I start a new class - which is awesome! The other perk is that all financing is done through them so I don't need to take out any loans and I can get reimbursed for tuition through my day job - so I really shouldn't have to pay a whole lot to finish my degree...which is a perk.

If all goes as planned, both of us should be enrolled before the end of the year *fingers crossed* I miss being in school. I like learning new things and constantly challenging myself. Its been over a year since I've been in school (I finished my fitness nutrition in October 2010) and have completed Zumba classes/licenses since then - but it would be nice to start working towards a degree again.

Anyways, enough rambling for me...have a great day everyone!

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

I am alive!!!!

So this past weekend I got hit with the yuckiest stomach bug I've ever had (and I mean ever). I don't get sick often, and this one had me out of commission all weekend. No bueno. The stomach pains were so bad that I didn't want to eat anything - dropped 5lbs in water weight the first night! After a few days of recovery, I'm feeling about 95% better. I rehydrated and have been forcing myself to eat higher amounts of sodium so weight came back up. Still a little weak - but overall okay.

Made it through my 2 classes yesterday without much of an issue, so I'm thinking I'll be okay in my classes today. I'll just have to do the best I can and not completely exhaust myself & risk getting sick again. Nutrition has been crap - but weight is maintaining at or around 185ish, which is good. For the past few days, I've been eating whatever sounds good (considering I couldn't really eat for 3 days) just to get my strength back - which has basically amounted to crap...nachos, burritos...you get the idea. Once my strength is back to 100%, I'll start cleaning it up a little bit but I figure that I'm just going to try to maintain what I can through the weekend and see where I'm at on Monday.

In other news, hubby and I got new phones on Monday! Wahoo!!! Super sexy iPhones (the brand spankin' new 4s ones)!!! We switched carriers to get better service and couldn't be happier! Woot! I am so emotionally attached to it already - its scary! haha! Hubby loves his too! I'm still learning it (since I've been android for a few years now) but I'm loving it so far!!!



Anyways, I'm still keeping a written diary of how food has been affecting me - so that's helping me figure some things out. I need to figure out what my mental hang up is with food - why do I overeat, etc. If I can figure this out, then I can truly fix the rest of my life - instead of creating just another "diet plan". The Great Unknown was a way to start that, and it hasn't been working too well - but maybe I'll continue it into the new year. Learning to trust myself implicitly is a big step for me - I'm not surprised its taking me a few months to start getting it right.

In other news, due to above mentioned illness - running has been non-existant. Work and paying Zumba classes has been priority #1. Now that I'm starting to feel better, I might dabble in running again this weekend - but I'm terrified about relapsing into this illness and refuse to push myself too hard. And with Thanksgiving coming up, we'll be doing lots of family stuff and running around - so don't know if I'll have lots of time to do much of anything.

I think that's about it for me. Going to avoid most of a potluck at work which is good. I brought pumpkin pie though, and I might allow myself a little slice without whipped cream since its my fav. I'm teaching 3 classes after work and its not going to kill me to eat a piece of pie :-P

Have a good day everyone! I'm off to play with my new phone some more :-D

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Catching Up With Friends

So this morning's run was awesome! A friend of mine at work has been on vacation for a week - so he joined me in the gym to catch up and tell me all about his vacation. While he talked, I ran - and it felt awesome. Knocked out another mile in 10 minutes and it felt fabulous! Gotta love it!

Probably not going to do any more running today - I have 2 Zumbatomic classes after work and Curves after that. So I don't want to trash my legs too much before then. Should be another 3,000+ calorie burn day!

Weight stabalized again today - no big drop yet, so hoping for a woosh today or tomorrow. I'm going to stay in this diet phase until I'm back in the 170s and then transition into the next phase of the diet. Good times indeed.

Total Miles Ran in 2011: 131.2 Miles
Total Calories Burned "Running From My Issues": 19,660 Calories GONE

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Guitar Hero Running

So I had a great afternoon at my classes!! I rolled out a new song today and the kids loved it!! At my second school, one of the kids asked if we could do the macarena while playing our game. I told him absolutely, since I was convinced I had it on the iPod. After scrolling through half my music I realized I didn't!! Eep!!! I had machinehead immediately followed by macho men!!! No macarena! A travesty!! So I told the kiddos who then asked to do macho men instead!!! So we played our game to macho men and YMCA today!!! Totally amazing and fun!!!

After class I met up with the boys at Fat Squirrel since it was $2 Tuesday. I totally behaved myself!! Go me! I limited myself to 3 chicken wings, an order of peel and eat shrimp and diet coke!

After hanging out for a few hours, we headed home with our buddy Tom and the boys started playing Guitar Hero. My twisted brain obviously hasn't had enough cardio today and thought "this is my usual running music, lets knock out another mile in my goal to hit 200!"

So with the boys playing Avenged Sevenfold and Pantera, I knocked out a nice 11 min mile (first half at 6 MPH and second at 5 MPH) on the treadmill. It felt good and now my bugg says an awesome 3089 calories burned and 15,904 steps for the day! I feel accomplished!

Now time for sleep. I've got work at 5am and 3 classes after work. Busy day ahead! Gotta love it! Night all!

Total Miles Ran in 2011: 130.2 Miles Total Calories Burned "Running From My Issues": 19,495 Calories GONE

Running In The Dark

So I felt that pull again this morning....that unspoken desire to get my ass running again. Perhaps its because I just starting reading "Run" by Dean Karnazes, or because I'm trying to find an attainable goal to reach through the holidays (something I can do daily to help me survive this year) - but either way, that pull became a nervous antsy-ness around 7am this morning.

After my fabulously dismal run on Friday (I've never run a 5K that slowly) - but I recognized that I'm out of running shape, my knees hurt because of the weather change, I was tired and not 100% feeling it - BUT decided to do intervals instead, managed to finish and feel better after the fact - I had something to prove to myself this morning. Today I wanted to show myself that I'm still capable of running a solid mile at 6 MPH - a 10 min mile. I needed to see that I still could.

At 715, I took a break, grabbed my little shuffle MP3 player and headed to the gym at work. I'm already wearing workout clothes (since I have classes after work today) - so it was easy to jump on the treadmill. The gym lights were off - and I kept them that way. The only light was coming from the gray haze of wintery sunrise occurring outside. It felt great to run in the soft natural light - my eyes didn't have to strain or adjust...it was just awesome

So - now after all that build up...how did I do?? Well I proved myself correct - I am still capable of a 10 min mile. There was no question - it felt good. No hesitation during the whole thing - I zoned out almost instantly and enjoyed the whole thing. It was over before I knew it. That's how running should be. Not the slogging 5K I ran on Friday - this is what running is supposed to feel like. 1 mile in 10 mins - check that off today's list of accomplishments! Go me!

Now - that being said. I want to run as much as I can, but I don't want to force myself to do it (which takes the fun out of anything). Last year, I ran a Marathon to Christmas - a mile a day from Thanksgiving to Christmas, just to keep my lazy butt in shape during the holidays. This year, I feel like I can accomplish more....but how much more??

There are currently 53 days left in a year. 53 - that's a good solid Ultra....that's over 85 KM - even running a mile a day its definitely ambitious considering how much I already work out. BUT - according to my mileage tracker, I'm currently at over 129 miles for the year. 129 + 53 = 182 miles....that's damn close to 200. Can I hit 200 miles by the end of the year? 53 days to run 71 miles. That's over 8 miles a week. If I do a mile a day, with one 5K day each week - this is do-able. I think this is my ambitious goal for the next 53 days....I want to make the rest of this year count. I've had too many slack off days. I need something tangible to work towards. Since I don't have the free time or the energy to train for a longer race - this is the best I can to

Happy Running Everyone!

Total Miles Ran in 2011: 129.2 Miles
Total Calories Burned "Running From My Issues": 19,320 Calories GONE

Friday, November 4, 2011

That was a good run....

So I got in a good run after work today. I had the day off from classes - so I decided to run. No time constraints, pushing for PRs or any other stresses - just run. As far as I wanted, I walked when I wanted to and ran when I wanted to - just whatever the hell I wanted to do and it was fantastic!

I haven't been able to run (I mean really run) in months - so today was just about getting myself a good workout and feeling good about myself again. Top speed was 6.5 MPH, with walking intervals every half mile or so (I'd sprint then walk, sprint then walk) for a full 5K. I realized that I need to work on my running conditioning again - but that will come with time.

For now, I just enjoyed the awesomeness of being able to run again. I'm toying with the idea of the Marathon to Christmas idea again - a mile a day from Thanksgiving until Christmas - but maybe just a little different. Maybe a mile a day from now until the end of the year - something along the lines of "My Ultra to 2012". Who knows - it would be really good to run today and I know I'd enjoy that freedom of running again on a regular basis

Total Workout Time: 51 Minutes (Including Warm Up And Cool Down)
Total Calories Burned: 505 Calories
Total Distance Traveled: 3.75 miles (3.12 during workout - rest through warm up and cool down)

Now time to change and get ready to go out. We are taking the bike to the Honda dealership today to get repaired and then out to dinner at a local BBQ place. Should be a good evening! Tomorrow is class and training with a client - if I have the energy maybe I'll throw some kettlebells around tomorrow...we'll see how I'm feeling. I don't want to push it too hard, but I want to push myself a little farther than my current boundaries are set....damn me and my constant drive to better myself as a person!!! haha!

Total Miles Ran in 2011: 128.2 Miles
Total Calories Burned "Running From My Issues": 19,150 Calories GONE

Hi!!!

Okay so here I am - still here, super busy, but still here! The past few weeks they've offered overtime at work to help meet our service level goals - so I worked 8 hours of OT last pay period - which came to a nice extra $200 on my paycheck today. However, with working my normal shift, all my classes plus overtime - didn't leave much time for anything else...so that's why I've been scarce!

The After School program is continuing to go well. I have 5 1/2 weeks left of this quarter (the 1/2 is the week of Thanksgiving). Its definitely been hard work, but the payoff has been awesome! I am using the extra cash from this program to pay down my monsterous credit card - which is going well (and now its not so monstrous anymore!) I'm hoping to cut that balance in half by the beginning of the year - it started around $9500 so I'm shooting for less than a $5000 balance by sometime in January...it will be tough, but I'm thinking I can do it!

In other news, hubby and I are getting ready to completely pay off our motorcycle (the remaining balance is $4,100!) and it will be GONE in about 3 weeks! Can't wait!! We are working super hard to get our debt down and its going great! Having the bike paid off will mean that I've got an extra $160 a month to go towards something else. Once this bill is gone, I only have my credit card (currently $8800 balance) and car payment (current $9100 balance) left over - that's definitely not bad at all!! The hubby only has about $4000 left on his credit card, so that should be gone soon too!!! I'm really excited to start the next chapter of our lives (with the exception of the mortgage) - debt free!! Wahoo!

Alrighty - onto other things. Nutrition has been off most of the week...but weight has stabalized and I'm staying about the same. I'm back on my eating plan today and its going really well so far. We made seafood stuffed Salmon last night and it was super yummy! I brought the leftovers for lunch today and that's definitely going to be nice to eat! I bought a nice beef roast and I'm going to marinade it and make jerky this weekend in our dehydrator. That's a nice snack and its much cheaper to make it ourselves than buy it in a store. I found some killer recipes online, so hopefully it will turn out yummy!

Been reading a lot recently - both work and non-work related and its been really good for me. Reading is a great way to calm my brain down and I've found a great series that I'm really enjoying right now. I've got a ton of books lined up on my Nook and hopefully I'll be able to keep up with my reading throughout the next few weeks. I've been keeping track of all the books I've read this year - its been nice to track what I've actually accomplished this year, I'm over 30 books so far!! Considering I have zero free time - I'm happy with that!

Workouts are continuing to just be classes at the moment. I got in a pilates strength training workout last weekend - was expecting some DOMS from it, but got NOTHING! Boo!! I guess I need to find something a little more challenging to put my body through. Once again, going back to the option of KettleBell workouts...maybe 3 days a week...hmmm....now I just need to find the energy to add that into the routine. I don't want to over cardio myself while eating better and lose muscle definition.

Anyways, that's about it. Got a run planned for this afternoon and I'm totally looking forward to it! Can't wait! Happy Friday to all!!! Its been FREEZING here recently, so I'm looking forward to staying warm this weekend!!!