Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Another great running day

So as usual - I love my running days. There's just nothing that compares to them. The amount of awesomeness that comes from a good run just can't be found anywhere else. The only downside - I wore a different pair of sneakers today....and I'm fearing that I might have some fabulous blisters on my left foot. My foot started bugging me halfway through my run today, but I just couldn't bring myself to stop and I ran through the uncomfort.

Either way - it was blissfully amazing - just running and ignoring everything else that's going on. Weight is starting to drop back down again - and this is making me happy.
Week 5 Day 3:
Warm Up
Run for 20 minutes at 5 MPH
Cool Down

Total Workout Time: 25 Minutes
Total Calories Burned: 320 Calories
Total Distance Ran: 1.83 miles

Things are going well and I'm happy right now! Not much else going on here. Life is busy, but in a good way.

Miles Ran Towards A Better Me in 2012: 11.65 Miles
Total Calories Burned: 2060 Calories Burned

Monday, April 16, 2012

A Post For A Friend

Here is a post, written by a friend David Haas regarding exercise and its benefits to cancer treatments. There's lots of great information here - so enjoy everyone!! Exercise ALWAYS has its benefits, and this just reinforces how healing it truly can be!

Exercise Can Help During Cancer Treatment

In the past, doctors and health care personnel encouraged cancer patients to rest and take it easy following a cancer diagnosis or during treatment. But it's now known that exercise is very beneficial to cancer patients, whether newly diagnosed or going through mesothelioma treatment or treatment for another type of cancer. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that you use a variety of fitness to provide you with useful benefits throughout your treatment program for cancer. The following considerations can assist you in choosing the activities that are best for you.

Increase the Things You Need More Of

Many people with cancer find themselves running short on energy during a time in which they really need it. Exercise might be one of the last things you think of when you're feeling tired, but it can actually be one of the best tools for fighting fatigue. When you're feeling tired or depleted of energy, start off by taking a walk. Speed and intensity aren't important; just move your body. If you begin to feel revitalized, pick up your pace or walk a little farther.

Decrease the Undesirables

Stress, nausea and joint stiffness are common symptoms and side effects experienced during cancer treatment. Use appropriate types of exercise to help you ease them. Yoga, Pilates, swimming and Tai Chi are more gentle forms of exercise that are beneficial to your body and your mind. Even 10 minutes per day can help you reduce stress, gain greater range of motion and find relief from nausea.

Gauge Your Feelings

Exercise according to how you're feeling each day. Some days you might have the energy to exercise for a longer period of time at a more intense level. Other days, it can be a chore just to lift your feet. Gauge the type of fitness you participate in to how you're feeling so you can make improvements, instead of adding more stress.

Variety is the Spice of Life

Prevent exercise boredom by trying different types of exercise on different days. Alternate aerobic exercise with resistance exercise each day to help you build muscle strength and cardiovascular health. A well-rounded physical fitness plan is most effective for building your health and addressing your individual needs.

Just as there's not one cancer treatment that works perfectly for everyone, there's no cookie cutter exercise program that works best for all. The most effective fitness program to use during treatment is the one that addresses your individual needs. Use the way you feel physically and emotionally as your guide to dictate the amount and type of exercise you incorporate into your daily routine. In doing this, exercise becomes a powerful tool in your toolbox to help you look and feel the best you possibly can. Fitness during cancer has the potential to make you feel empowered and it helps to place control over how you feel back into your hands. Use exercise in a way that works best for you so you can create a greater focus on wellness and well-being.

Sources:
www.acsm.org
http://www.mesothelioma.com/treatment/

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Crappy Days Make The Best Runs

So its been a rough few weeks at work. The company I worked for has decided to consolidate their business and that's making my job harder. There's just lots of junky things going on and its really getting to be hard to make it through the day with a positive attitude. Today I had meetings for 3 hours straight where the consolidation was discussed. Needless to say, my brain was mush after that.

I had planned on running at lunch today. The plan was to do another interval day since I did a longer solid run on Tuesday. I wasn't sure which workout I'd do, I figured I'd wing it depending on how I was feeling after all my meetings. Well, I was grumpy. I didn't want to do anything. The intervals still sounded appealing - only because I could have walking breaks.

For some silly reason, I started the Week 5 Day 3 (solid 20 min run) workout on the IPOD on the way back to the gym. Even when I started my warm up, I still wasn't convinced I was going to run the whole 20 minutes. But somehow - I channeled all that frustration into one of the best runs ever. The 20 minutes flew by and I had a steady effortless pace the whole time. It took me a few minutes to find my groove, but once I did - the run was amazing. I sang along with my music, cleared my head and thought about the things that were really bugging me. Granted, the issues are still on my brain, but I'm not as grumpy anymore - which is progress.

Week 5 Day 3:
Warm Up
Run for 20 minutes at 5 MPH
Cool Down

Total Workout Time: 26 Minutes
Total Calories Burned: 320 Calories
Total Distance Ran: 1.83 miles

Overall - great workout. Still kinda crappy day, but great workout. I have one class this afternoon that should be super fun and then one class tomorrow afternoon. So a nice way to ease into the weekend for sure!

Miles Ran Towards A Better Me in 2012: 9.82 Miles
Total Calories Burned: 1740 Calories Burned

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Another great running day

So nutrition has been off the past few days - can't really control that. Just accepting it for what it is - and moving on. Yesterday, Zumba was canceled due to not many people signing up (since it was Easter Monday) so hubby took me on an unexpected date night!! We went to see "The Hunger Games"!! SO good!!!

I've decided I'm going to do the best I can with nutrition - try not to stress about it, but enjoy training for my Warrior Dash & getting back into running. I'm trying to turn things around so I'm not stressing about things as much. There's lots of things I can't change, so there's no point worrying about them. Hopefully this will help me zen out a little bit. I've been reading a lot recently and that's been really helpful with keeping my head on straight.

Today I didn't have time to pack a lunch, but I picked up food on the way to work. Not the best - but I couldn't change it, so I'm trying to not get upset about it. Not super hungry after it either - which I guess can be a good thing.

The BEST news of the day - its a running day!! I decided to tackle Week 5 Day 3 today - the solid 20 min run. This one is always a little daunting considering everything before is always intervals. This is the first continuous stretch. I had no doubt that I could do it - but its always a push the first time. I struggled a little bit about halfway through it because I was distracted (there were others in the gym who were trying to talk to me - so I couldn't really get in a groove. But once I found it - it was amazing. NO issues at all!

Week 5 Day 3:
Warm Up
Run for 20 minutes at 5 MPH
Cool Down

Total Workout Time: 25 Minutes
Total Calories Burned: 310 Calories
Total Distance Ran: 1.85 miles

Feels good and I'm already looking forward to my run on Thursday! Yippee!

Miles Ran Towards A Better Me in 2012: 7.99 Miles
Total Calories Burned: 1420 Calories Burned

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Another Amazing Run!

So Happy Thursday!!! Today is a great day - its my mommy's birthday, so we're going out to dinner with her, woke up to another drop in the scale (5.2 pounds in total so far!) AND today is a running day! Yippee!

SO - since its mommy's birthday and we're doing dinner, today is an "off diet" day. I'm eating normally but within reason. This morning had a burrito from work and had a muffin as a snack. We are going to a local NM restaurant for a late lunch which is going to be fabulous. Not expecting a drop in the scale today - but I'm not worried. It will all be water anyways. There's almost no way I can overeat the surplus I've already created this week :-D

Today at lunch, I knocked out another running workout and once again - it felt incredible. I made it through the Week 5 Day 2 workout with ease - I wish I had more time on lunches, I'd keep running longer!

Today's Workout:

Warm Up
Run for 8 minutes at 5.0 MPH
Walk for 5 minutes at 3.5 MPH
Run for 7 minutes at 5.0 MPH and 1 minute at 5.5 MPH (total 8 mins running)
Cool Down

Total Distance: 1.77 miles
Total Calories Burned: 300
Total Workout Time: 26 Minutes

In other news, I decided to finally read this little book called "The Hunger Games" - there's a lot of hype about it, and I finally got curious. Well....it lives up to the hype. I'm definitely enjoying reading it and got totally sucked into it! Its a really cool world that the author has created!

Anyways, that's it for me. I don't have Zumba tonight or tomorrow and I will probably be scarce throughout the weekend - but hopefully everyone has a great few days! Maybe another run will happen this weekend!

Miles Ran Towards A Better Me in 2012: 6.14 Miles
Total Calories Burned: 1110

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

You ever have one of THOSE days?!?!?!?

So today is just shaping up to be totally awesome *rolls eyes*

This morning - the alarm clock decided it was going to switch to daylight savings (for the second time this week) and woke me up an hour early. I didn't realize it - got completely ready for my day before I looked at my phone. UGH! Dammit! Normally - I would have done a workout - but its Wednesday, so I've gotta save my energy. So I trudged back to bed and layed there for 45 minutes until it was time to get up - never fell back asleep.

Needless to say - a new alarm clock will be purchased this weekend.

So after all that awesomeness, I managed to pack myself a decent lunch - with a fair amount of calories to get me through the day (would have been about 1900 cals if I'd eaten it all) However, about 2 hours ago, I had the worst "I don't want to eat this stuff" moment. UGH! I've eaten so much fruit & veggies in the past 3 days, I literally didn't want any more. And you know why....because it was all mushy. Yup. I had a craving for something crunchy and none of my food even looks appetizing.

So I caved - its Wednesday and I need all the fuel I can get. I got some sweet potato fries from the cafe at work (technically they ARE still vegan) with a small amount of ranch dressing (not vegan but I don't care) With taking out what I didn't eat today, and adding in the fries - it put me right at 1550 calories for the day (so currently LESS than what I was going to eat of my mushy foods anyways) Anyways, I'm not trying to justify my crappy eating - but oddly enough, I feel better after it and my fruit still doesn't look appetizing at all, so I know I did the right thing today. I need all the energy I can get at the moment. Sleep deprivation does NOT do me wonders - need sweet potato fuel & caffeine to survive today :-D

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Running Rocks!

Okay - today was a running day and I feel amazing afterwards! No issues at all - knees felt great, body felt energetic, head was clear, breathing was calm....overall, the perfect run!!! I didn't push to go faster, I ran at a comfortable 5.0 MPH the whole time and it was awesome. I kept the lights in the gym off, so the room was filled with the soft natural light coming from the snowstorm outside. It literally was perfect. I could have easily kept going and going and going....I just didn't want to stop, especially since that meant I had to go back to work :-P

Since the Week 4 workout was a little easy for me last week, I decided to jump into Week 5 Day 1 today - which was 3 running intervals of 5 minutes a piece

Warm Up
Run at 5.0 MPH for 5 minutes
Walk at 3.5 MPH for 3 minutes
Run at 5.0 MPH for 5 minutes
Walk at 3.5 MPH for 3 minutes
Run at 5.0 MPH for 5 minutes
Cool Down

Total Calories Burned: 300
Total Distance Ran: 1.66 miles
Total Workout Time: 24 minutes

In other news, today we got hit with a random April snow storm. Not sure if I'll have my classes this afternoon or not. If it turns out I don't have my classes, I might hit the treadmill again just so I can average a good cardio burn for the day. Not sure if I'll be able to find that awesome perfection again, but I can sure try.

Miles Ran Towards A Better Me in 2012: 4.37 Miles
Total Calories Burned: 810

Things are getting better...

Hey there! So after a rather rough week last week - things are improving. There was a huge rainstorm here last night and I feel like I finally got a good nights sleep (I sleep like the dead when it rains) Today is Day 2 of my 21 Day Vegan Nutrition Jump Start challenge. Yesterday, I was kinda grumpy about it - just not really feelin' it. But after work, I went to the farmers market & Sunflower to stock up on fresh foods. I got kiwis, mangos, watermelon, plums, grapefruit, apples, sweet potatoes & lots of other goodies (lara bars were on sale too!) After picking up all that amazing food - it was hard to NOT get excited about the next few weeks!

AND after my fabulous workout last night, and a killer nights sleep, I woke up to a 3lb drop on the scale this morning! Woot! THAT definitely feels good!! I always felt amazing while I was eating vegan - and once again, it took less than 24 hours for my body to turn around again!! Wahoo!!! Definitely a happy camper!! I'm going to do my best to track all my foods on this challenge, but the glorious thing about vegan is that its almost impossible to eat at a surplus - so I'm just gonna eat when I'm hungry :-)

Today is a running day - as well as 2 of my After School classes - so will definitely get lots of movement in. I'll post my running workout after its completed. Yesterday - with being entirely lazy for most of the day (except for Zumba class) I burned 2,998 calories, walked 8,307 steps and had 2:42 minutes of activity - I guess wandering around the grocery stores for an hour definitely helps with calorie burns!