Battling the 5k and Days 27-32

I know I’ve talked about this on the blog before, but me and 5k’s don’t really get along.  Last night was the Tidewater Striders Memorial Scholarship 5k at Norfolk Botanical Gardens.  I’ve been participating in the Summer Series races since the first summer after I started running, 2011, and it is always a great time!  The Memorial Scholarship 5k is the last in the series of races and it is a chip timed 5k with all the pizza, beer, and fruit you can eat for $10.  I repeat, $10.  Doesn’t get much better than that!  Furthermore, it is a super chill and fun environment with awesome raffle prizes for a good cause.  I was even more excited this year since my sister and Dad ran as well as my friend Lauren.  Ben was off work and able to join in the fun as well, as seen in this ghostly image below, he was trying to photo bomb but didn’t quite make it.  Creep.

Banana hoarder…..

As usual, I had my internal struggle between pushing hard and not wanting to be in pain.  I read recently that if you aren’t extremely uncomfortable during a 5k (barring actual injury), you aren’t pushing hard enough or giving it all you have.  That’s how a 5k has to be run, and I’ve yet to master it.  I was telling myself this last night but I just couldn’t get it together.  I didn’t even think of a PR since it is summer, but I actually only missed it by 2 seconds.  Time = 28:48 **Kicks self in the ass because I totally could have picked it up the last mile**

I don’t know my exact splits at the moment but I know my first mile was sub 8:30 and my 3rd was a little over a minute slower.  I am positive with more work on the short distance speed and a little more push I can do 3 8:30 miles easily.  I am looking for a race that I can PR in the fall and the ultimate goal is to Beat the Ball at this year’s New Year’s Eve race.  Lofty, but not out of the realm of possibility if I work for it.

80 Day Weight-Loss Challenge

Day 27:  Does your family support you in your weight loss?

Definitely!  I think a lot of the time I have to be the motivator in the group but they motivate me as well.  My family (definitely myself included) loves food so there is always that challenge, but at the end of the day I have to be accountable for my own decisions and actions.

Day 28:  What is your favorite type of snack?

I snack pretty consistently, once at 10:00 am and once around 3:00, and my current fave is my afternoon cottage cheese with some sort of veggie.  Right now I am dipping baby carrots in it.  I also really enjoy celery and salsa or hummus.  Morning snack is almost always greek yogurt or usually, a banana.

Day 29:  Write your current weight. Have you lost anything in the past week? If not, what are your plans for this week?

Excited for this one!  My weigh-in this weekend was once again a success!  Last week I predicted that I wouldn’t see a big loss again like last week, and that was true, but I still lost nearly a pound (.9) and that was before my super sweaty long run on Sunday LOL.  159.2 this week and chugging along towards vacation GOAL!

Closer to 155 vacation goal!

Day 30:  Are you a vegan or a vegetarian?

I honestly don’t think I could ever go vegan.  I respect that lifestyle and those who chose to follow it but it is too intense for me.  I love my eggs first of all and don’t think I could give up dairy either.  I did go vegetarian for a while in college, and I’m still not a huge meat eater.  I eat a lot more now than I used to since I am putting an emphasis on protein but I can go several meals without and not miss it at all.  I definitely did the vegetarian thing all wrong in college and ate lots of carbs, which lead to weight gain.

Day 31:  What are your favorite workout clothes you own?

I have a few lululemon pieces that are nice, but given the price I don’t think they are that worth it.  Most of my gear is either Nike, which is definitely my favorite for the fit and style/colors, but I also love Old Navy’s active collection!  The compression capris are awesome and they are my go to for my big marathons or halfs when it is chilly.  Just tried the running shorts out this summer too and love them!  Shoes are Saucony all the way.

Day 32:  Try a new fruit today. Learn how to cut/eat it and enjoy! How was it?

I am headed to the store after work and plan to pick out a new fruit!  I will have to head straight for the tropical/exotic section since I am a heavy fruit eater anyway.  Will update tonight or tomorrow!

Finally, meals from the weekend…

Friday night cookout at home:

BBQ chicken, grilled fresh corn, roasted carrots and grill eggplant strips

Sunday Fish Dinner:

Grilled lime cilantro tilapia with brown rice and peppers and grilled fresh green beans

Excited to fire up the grill again tonight for a couple of my best friends and former college roomies 🙂

Weekend Weigh-In and Mo Veggies Please

Happy Monday morning….or not.  Trying to be optimistic about the week here!  I’ve been blissfully ignoring the scale lately and it is certainly starting to show.  I did a lot of dumb things over the past few weeks eating wise and I’d like to share, but first here is today’s number:

Not too bad, but definitely creeping back up, which is obviously the wrong way.  Basically, I think I can blame a number of different things for this.  A) The bulk of my longest runs were in the past few weeks and I was insatiable hungry all.the.time.  Not an excuse to go crazy though! B) I tried to do a “cleanse” that turned out all wrong.  After seeing/reading lots of good things about Advocare on different blogs, I thought I might give it a try.  I was super skeptical of the products (and any like them for that matter) but I started seeing it crop up on blogs I consider trustworthy and gave the Herbal Cleanse a try.  I’ll be honest, I did all the recommended eating and followed the nutrition to a T and had to quit on day 4.  The fiber drink was awful, the horse pills I had to take at night made me gag and literally throw up in my mouth once, and I felt like ASS the entire week.  I had horrible headaches at work and random moments of nausea.  Without giving TMI, I also didn’t have a…ahem…movement for 4 days!  I did some research online and Advocare claimed these could be normal side effects of the “toxins” leaving your body, but I just couldn’t function at work or feel good enough to get in good runs, so I quit.  Anything that puts me THAT out of wack just isn’t worth it for me.  By the way, I boomeranged after that and ate like I just came out of starvation.  Weight gain source #2! C) I just like food, a lot and tend to swing back to old habits and get carried away sometimes.

All that said, I’ve made a commitment this week to getting back on track and making my body happy.  No more restrictive eating, just giving myself what I want and staying close to my goal intake for the day with lots of fresh fruits and veggies!  I already eat pretty healthy at meal times and take in 100-120 oz of water a day anyway, so why I thought I needed a cleanse to fix me I’m not sure.  I just need to buckle down and go back to doing what worked for me when I lost the weight in the first place and what always works without fail, eat right and work hard at the gym!  Rocket science, yes I know.

I also challenged my parents, sister, and aunt to start making this commitment with me this week.  We’ve all gotten a little complacent with our eating and the cold weather has been keeping us indoors, and we have to change that!  We all weighed in together yesterday to start the week with accountability.  I made myself this big old omlette blob of eggs with lots of veggies towards my goal of eating more of them, and we also had a great meal last night that was full of them!  We made Skinnytaste Buffalo Turkey Burgers with Broccoli Slaw and they were delicious!  The burgers themselves had shredded carrots and onions in them which you hardly noticed but added extra veggies to the meal.  The broccoli slaw on top, roasted sweet potato wedges and giant salad on the side pumped up the nutrition too.  It was a super satisfying and filling dinner I’m looking forward to enjoying leftovers of today!

1 egg, 2 whites and red peppers, green peppers, tomato and spinach (beautiful blurry shot)

Buffalo Turkey Burger with Broccoli Slaw, Roasted Sweet Potato, Salad & Beer

I’ve been keeping up with Bodypump and can definitely tell a difference in my arms especially! I also got my first swim workout in for the week and man, it really takes it out of me. I’ll finish off today with a photo of Halligan sitting on our couch like a human with demon eyes. He is so lazy, but a stunner none the less.

Workout: 4 miles (Treadmill) + Abs

A Not the Weekend Weigh In

First things first, dinner last night was lazy, quick and easy but pretty good!  I had bought a frozen Stouffers Chicken and Rice with Vegetable bake a while back for nights when Ben may or may not be eating at home so I could pop it in the oven or keep frozen if we didn’t need it.  I baked it last night and rode my elliptical/watched Monday’s episode of the Bachelor while I waited for Ben to arrive. Before I went home to cook dinner, I also hit up a 5 mile run during which NONE of the pain from Monday’s run resurfaced and I felt awesome.  I conquered a new bridge I haven’t done before and got to the top at the peak of sunset!  It was beautiful and as much as I wish I had taken a picture, I was too lazy to take my phone out of my armband plus I was trying to pay attention to oncoming traffic.

Chicken and Rice Bake with Side Salad

I followed dinner up with a delicious Navel Orange that was super juicy.  Getting to my weigh-in, which as mentioned yesterday I did not do this past weekend, it went really well!  I weighed in this morning before an early spin class and the scale blessed me with this number:

Gotta paint those toes ASAP

This number means I managed to kick 2 more pounds but the downside is that i am .7 lbs away from my Dietbet goal and getting my winnings for the month of January! I still technically have until Thursday night for the final weigh in but I’m not sure if I’ll make it. Again, regardless of the outcome I am just happy to have been motivated by this challenge and lost a few pounds towards my final weight loss goal! The ladies (and guys) were great about posting and sharing motivation and I think this is a great way to lose weight if anyone is interested. I would recommend it and Roni is starting a new game on Thursday if anyone wants to join!

Speaking of challenges, the Chilly Challenge I’ve been participating is also coming to a close on tomorrow.  It has been super fun and motivating and helped me to get outside those nights when I wanted to stay bundled up on my couch!  I’m closing in on 100 miles which will also help me reach my monthly goal, which I’ll talk about more in the next couple of days.

Hope everyone has a lovely day, I’m hitting the gym again tonight for a short run and Body Pump….two a days baby!

Workout: 50 Minute Group Cycle, 3 Mile Run (Treadmill), Body Pump

Weekend Weigh-In

I weighed in Sunday morning on both mediums, the Wii and my new scale. Losses were comparable even though I’m still partial to the Wii since it was a bit less. Wii results:

Don’t hate on my Mii

-1.1 pounds from last Saturday for a weight of 153.0:

This is disgustingly blurry…

The new scale had not so similar results from a weight taken last Monday after I ate WAY too much food on New Year’s Eve. Down 2.6 pounds by this scales measurement for a weight of 155.4. I was probably a lot more bloated Monday morning. I had only weighed 157 on this same scale the morning before.

I should probably paint my toes.

All in all, I’m happy with that! Less than 4 pounds to go before the end of January to make my Dietbet challenge weight. These pupusas enjoyed Saturday afternoon after my race with friends definitely didn’t help, but they were delicious!

Cheese and Squash Pupusas with Salvadorian Slaw….YUM!

I got new running kicks this weekend so I’ll be back to chat about that as well as a topic I never finished tackling last week, what to do with race stuff!

Weekend Weigh-In & A New Challenge

Happy New Year’s Eve! Before I get to the weigh-in I have a few meals to document and a new obsession to talk about! I love fresh pineapple but I hate cutting one up, or at least I’m usually too lazy to do it. We had so much delicious fresh pineapple in Costa Rica that this new tool was the perfect prescription for my addiction:

Amazingness

I got this for Christmas and will never go without fresh pineapple again! After it cores it it also slices it into chunks if desired and it was fabulous. When I first woke up Saturday morning it was dreary and pouring so I cheered myself up by making a smoothie after cutting up my pineapple. I added a few cubes of ice, 3 oz of plain Chobani greek yogurt, half a frozen banana and a cup of fresh pineapple to the mix.

Smoothie with Pineapple, Banana & Greek Yogurt

It was pretty delicious and I followed up with an egg white spinach English muffin with cheddar and the best breakfast sausages ever, chicken apple maple!

Best. Sausage. Ever.

The rain didn’t clear out until late afternoon so my long run didn’t go as planned, but I did manage to get in 7 easy miles before the sun set. Sunday morning’s breakfast was another English muffin with leftover Christmas ham, egg whites, and cheese plus a plain greek and fresh pineapple mix. Dinners this weekend have left some to be desired…but it is time to get moving this week!!!

Sunday Morning Bfast

Getting to the scale, my weight back before vacation and after the Thanksgiving onslaught was 151.0. My post vacation and Christmas weight was…

154.5!

I’ll definitely take that! A 3.5 pound gain with all the rice I ate was definitely not too shabby. I actually think I lost a pound of that this week but I am starting over in a sense because I bought a new scale! I’ve done some research and although I will continue to track my weight on the Wii Fit as well, I’ve read that it can be somewhat inaccurate, especially because ours is on carpet. My new scale said 157 this morning which I didn’t get discouraged by since I know all scales read different. I’ve also heard that the Wii usually weights lighter than typical scales, so no biggie.

New scale weigh-in

The other main reason I bought this new scale is because I need it for the January challenge I’ve accepted with other readers from Roni’s Weigh with Dietbet.com!  The way this is going to work is that all participants put $20 into the pot so to speak, and those who “win” by losing 4% of their total body weight by the end of the month get a share of the pot!  I think it is a fun way to kick some of those last lingering pounds I’m holding on to.  You are required to take a picture of a digital scale so I thought this would work better and be more accurate for the challenge.  By the way how weird is it that I never owned a scale before my Wii?  Don’t answer that.  I can’t wait to see if I am up to the challenge and can have fun doing it!  Initial weigh-ins are still going on and it doesn’t official begin until the 2nd so join up if interested!

I hope everyone has a fun AND safe New Year’s Eve!  I’ll be running into the New Year and a race recap for that will be coming up later in the week.  I’m also running another race at 10:00 AM on New Year’s Day that I haven’t done before so that will be interesting too (I know I”m crazy).  New Year’s resolutions coming atcha tomorrow 🙂

Weekend Weigh-In

Stopping in quick during the Redskins game and before I get immersed in a final homework project to report this week’s weigh-in!  I was actually pretty surprised with this week’s result as I was expecting to stay the same or not lose much.  I didn’t do horrible this week but I wasn’t able to get in the gym as much as I wanted to.  Without further ado, here it is:

151.0

A 1.2 pound loss from last week and back at pre-Thanksgiving weight!  I’ll take it 🙂 Even though I didn’t work out in the traditional sense as much as I should have and I indulged a bit, I improvised throughout the week.  I did 2 mid-workday stairwell workouts during lunch this week, one that really burned my calves and glutes up!  I also hit the elliptical at home a few times and made some adjustments to my diet.  Still, I had my indulgences and didn’t expect that loss!  This week it is on like donkey kong with less than seven days until we jet off to somewhere that I will be wearing a bikini.  Gotta get crazy with the abs and cardio this week.  I’ll be back with a race recap from an always fabulous J&A holiday race ran this weekend but until then, I’ll leave with a photo of a delicious breakfast made my my sweet Benjamin since I may or may not have indulged a bit much last night and wasn’t feeling 100% this morning.  Off to watch the rest of the game, go to bodypump at the gym, and do marathon homework all night…

Egg White Whole Grain Muffin with Cheese and Jeannie O Turkey Bacon

Weekend Weigh-In & Weekend Fun!

Checking in with my weekly weigh-in and I’m happy to report this number:

152.2

This means I am down 1.3 from last week, so I haven’t kicked ALL the weight gained during Thanksgiving week but I am happy to see any minus because I definitely didn’t eat perfectly last week.  These last few weeks of the semester in my graduate program have been killing me and the stress is really weighing me down…no pun intended ;).

With that said, it was a great weekend!  It started with a holiday open house with several vendors for shopping with all the lovely ladies in my family, followed by an awesome family workout Saturday morning!  Ben and I, my parents, my sister and Emary (who is part of our family anyway) went over to Noland trail and all did our own things (walked/ran).  Ben, Emary and I ran the whole trail which was possibly a bad idea considering Ben and I had a race coming up Sunday morning but as my race recap later will tell, it all turned out well (I’ll have to update the PR list!).  We followed up with Panera lunch and I headed home to sit and stare at one of my papers for several hours.  Ben and I had my parents take pictures of us for our Christmas cards and there were some pretty funny bloopers.  I’ll edit this post to add one of my favorites when I get a chance.  We tried to hit the sack relatively early for the race in the AM!

After Sunday’s race there was coffee, a little outlet shopping, and a nap!  We headed to the Ferguson Center for the Arts at my alma mater last night to see Mannheim Steamroller’s Christmas performance as a family and it was wonderful!  We squeezed in dinner at Bonefish grill before and I made efforts to eat healthy but didn’t do the best job.  I am still working on making smart choices at restaurants and I’m sure I will post more at length on that topic at some point.  Things are busy for me for the next few days between work and finishing up school assignments but I will try to get the race recap up before Wednesday and start posting again more regularly later in the week.  Happy Monday 🙂

Weekend Weigh-In Fail and Accountability

Guilty. That is what I feel this morning. Not because as you are about to find out I gained weight this past week, but because I’ve been avoiding broadcasting that fact and getting back to accountability. It’s easy to do right? One bad week and the thought of starting again on “X” day starts creeping in. “I’ll start next week” or “I’ll wait until after Christmas” is simply not good enough. What I saw on the scale this weekend was this:

153.5

This isn’t a horrible number, but it means that I gained 2.5 pounds last week and undid all I had worked for the week before. I am still a bit baffled that I managed to gain that much considering I made so many extra efforts to be good on Thanksgiving and not over-do it but what I failed to realize is that I let the stress from the rest of the week unhinge my eating habits ALL WEEK, not just Thursday. What I failed to remember was that Thanksgiving was just one day, and that I needed to pay attention to my habits all week to be successful. Moving on to today. I’ve still been slacking this week, discouraged by the number on the scale from the weekend. That ends today. I know that having that mentality will only lead to a spiral into the holiday season that would end with a giant guilt trip and extra pounds on January 1. It’s not always easy but I have to be honest and accountable TO MYSELF because I am only cheating one person by not doing so, ME.

December is going to be a crazy month with a much anticipated tropical vacation waiting in the middle plus all the holiday festivities of the month. I am making a resolution to stay accountable this month, not starting December 1st, but TODAY. There is no better day than the one you wake up and realize you are cheating yourself and slipping into unhealthy habits. Back to the grind!

**Since I’ve been MIA this week I do have lots to catch up on. Look for another post this evening or tomorrow morning where I will share my favorite leisurely workout spot in photos.

Workout: Plank Challenge Workout + 60 minutes elliptical

Weekend Weigh-In

So here’s the thing….I debated posting weigh-ins for a while, but if I want to go 100% with the accountability and really stick to what I’m preaching I feel like I have to!  I was really successful this week to so Ican start off posting this with confidence.  Do I think there will be weeks when I am not proud of what I have to post?  Absolutely.  Will people be critical about how much I weigh/lose/gain?  Definitely, whether they voice that opinion or not.  The point is, I am willing to make myself venerable with the hope that I can inspire others to stay accountable to themselves by weighing in.  So without further ado…
Starting Weight (10/2010): 175

Current Weight: 151.0

Goal Weight: 145

Even though I am super close to my goal weight FINALLY, I think it is important to do this for myself because these last few pounds have been the hardest of all.  Also, while on this topic, I’d like to point out that I definitely don’t think the number on the scale says it all, or that it is necessary for everyone to weigh in every week or at all.  It all depends on what your personal goals are, and if that means just getting more toned or building muscle mass, you probably don’t care about the number.  I’m sure once I do reach my goal my feelings on the scale will change, but it is always a good indicator of how you are doing eating wise and how healthy and happy your body is.  I’ll be posting more in depth about my thoughts on weight loss and my personal weight loss with photos when time allows.  This afternoon, mounds of homework are calling as is food prep for the week.

Stay tuned tomorrow morning for a weekend recap and a Fun Family Workout post!

Workout: Fast Treadmill Mile and Body Pump (AM), 5 miles (road)