50 Mile Challenge?????

So it's the end of August and I had posted on 8/1/13 that I wanted to set a goal of 50 miles this month, whether it was jogging, biking, or the elliptical, as long as I hit my goal.

I had seen several other blogs posting about the 50 miles challenge and my initial reaction to all of it, was wow I'm really proud of that person, what an accomplishment, and then I had the thought that maybe someday I could do that. Maybe after I lose 10 more lbs, or maybe after jogging another 6 weeks, I will be "up to it" 50 Miles is alot of miles..................................

Another reason I didn't think that I could actually complete 50 miles is that school started back this month, and fall baseball started back, and I'm coaching again this year. So those are two big commitments, which take time and planning on my end, which leaves less time for the gym!

So, the end result.......................................................57.97 miles!!!!!!!

Those are actual miles from the machines at the gym! Crane and I walk atleast once a week on our lunch for 20-25 mins, and we walk twice a day for 11 mins. on our 15 min. breaks. I'd say most days I get a mile in at work, but it's broke up during the day, so I didn't count it for the challenge, but if I added it up, I'd say my best guess would be 3.5 miles per week at work which would make a monthly total of 71.97 miles!

I move way more then I thought I did, yet the pounds don't come off easy! I'm a very strict calorie counter Mon-Fri, I let up some on the weekends, but Mon-Fri, I keep the calorie count to 1300, if I exercise then I typically eat those calories back too, but I like going to bed with the MFP app in the "green" not red!
Tonight's results are this on MFP..................Goal 1300, Food 2152, Exercise 428, Net 1724, Remaining Cals -424.

So I'm in the red which means I ate 424 calories more then I should have! I had a lunch date with my oldest and the Brock Family! Thanks Steph for buying our lunch, so nice of you guys! We enjoyed the company too! :-)

I lost one pound last week and one pound the week before, yes I'd like for that to average 2-3 pounds a week. I'm not going to complain, last week we celebrated the hubs birthday with a Pizza Buffet and a wonderful cake! :) And then we had a dinner to honor my Aunt Eleanor, so I had two days of not counting cals, so I will take the one pound weight loss!

My husband weighs about 25 pounds less then me, which just plain SUCKS, so my new goal is to lose 25 more pounds by Nov. it's very doable that's about 8 pounds a month, 2 pounds a week. Should be no problem! :)

I am now about 10 pounds away from the weight I was when he and I met! So I'm feeling pretty good right now, but even when I lose the 25 pounds, I will still be in the "over weight" category! When I hit that "goal" I'm going on a shopping spree. I'm already noticing the 13 lbs I've lost has made a huge difference in my clothes and most everything I wear to work is super big on me! It's a good thing, but looks tacky :(

My mom did buy me a super cute dress the other day, it's red/white stripe and form fitting, I'm hoping to pair it with my jean jacket and wear it to work on Tuesday, I will post pics! It's too cute!

Here is a tip I read, I thought once I was consistently running one mile 4-5 days a week that I would "drop the weight" I knew it wouldn't go down drastically, but I thought it would add one pound weight loss every week. So after reading, I found this: if you run everyday for 31 days, you basically burn 100 cals per mile ran, so that's 3100 calories, and it takes 3500 cals to lose one pound. That's alot, now I know that I need to pair the exercise with cutting calories to make a deficit large enough to actually lose weight! Still doesn't make it easy, but no one promised easy! :-)

Here is a picture comparison, purple tank top was about 6 weeks ago at the gym, the navy shirt is tonight at the gym!

It's not a great comparison since one is alot further back! I will try to find a better to post!

I'm going to stay on track an keep on going to the gym until I can get those last stinky 25 pounds off! I do know I'm losing alot of inches, because I tried on a pair of jeans 6 weeks ago and called them my "goal jeans' they were 2 inches from buttoning and now the button so that's a good sign!

I will be thrilled to buy some size 12 jeans for this winter! :-)

Aunt Ella-Our Fav!

Cancer has struck our family again! I'm so very sad to say we lost one of the greatest family members we had! You know you always have that "one" in the family, who is just a Saint, everyone looks up to them, and loves to be around them! That was Aunt Ella for us!

Here she is with my dad at our last family reunion!

 

You can just see the sweetness on her! So lovable!

 

She is Aunt Eleanor to everyone, except my boys, from day one they called her Aunt Ella, and I love that!

 

She was my mom's favorite person, my dad's favorite, and mine too! My boys loved her and would ask to go see her!

 

We prayed for her to be healed, but God had other plans for her!

 

We love her and are sad, but we know she is rejoicing and reaping the benefits of a life well lived!

 

What an example she was to all of us!

 

This is the 3rd family member we have lost to cancer in 6 months.

 

Praying for all of us to get thru this difficult time.

 

 

Eating Out & Weight Loss

I want to start by saying, I'm still on the 50 miles challenge and I got in 10 miles tonight, 8.80 miles on the bike and 1.20 on the treadmill!
I call that a win-win for tonight!

I lost 1.2 lbs this week, while I'm happy with any loss on the scale, it could have been better, but sometimes life just happens, like crazy schedules and 2nd and 3rd jobs getting more busy.

I ate Pizza Buffet twice this past week, and Cracker Barrel and I managed to lose. I don't want people to think you can eat out and show weight loss all the time, but I'm managing to do so. When I say pizza buffet, one plate of the lowest cal pizza which is Taco Pizza for me, I eat 3 slices, I scrape off all the meat and cheese and replace the lettuce, tom. onion, I add in some red pepper, and about a teaspoon of marinara, hey it's still pizza buffet :) my salad has one scoop of dressing, everything else is calorie free veggies, no dessert pizzas, puddings, or potato salad. That meal weighs in at around 660 calories, while it isn't ideal, it's a nice "break" from work and counting cals for a moment. It's do-able especially if I go to the gym and have reasonable other meals that day. It's all about the planning!

My Cracker Barrel meal use to be the veggie plate of 6 veggies, (I could justify 6 because it was too hard to only pick 4, plus one or both toddlers were eating off my plate) I realize now that was just an excuse. 3 years ago, my order would have been: dumplings, mashed potatoes, hashbrown casserole, maybe even two servings of HB casserole, corn, green beans, biscuits and corn muffins, I like both so it was always a toss up, but typically I liked the corn bread better, that is until I read the cals in those bad boys, like almost double what a biscuit has in it! So now I don't eat them. My meal the other night went like this: veggie plate of 4: green beans, carrots, brown beans, and dumplings (I shared dumplings with Bre) I did eat a biscuit and a corn muffin. I called that my splurge meal of the weekend!

I am loving Logan's Roadhouse right now, I get the broccoli and a veggie skewer and a mushroom skewer, I eat one roll, and wipe off all excess butter that is on it, next time I'm going to ask for some with no butter. That meal is about 600 cals also, not horrible for a night out! here is what my plate looks like:

I'm learning on this journey of mine, things I would have never done without, insert cheese on everything, is that if you can't taste it when it's on a sandwich or on a taco salad or a coney dog, then why spend the cals on it? I've been coming up with ways to cut 100-300 cals a day and it's working.

I know I can do better, but am happy with the way things are going, I'd love to get where I'm consistently losing two pounds a week, but I know that means a much more strict diet, so we shall see.

I'm feeling great, and excited to see where I'm at by Halloween, I'm gonna guess I will have lost another 14 lbs by then!

August Goals

So far so good!

I'm right on track with tracking my miles for the 50 mile challenge!

I just didn't feel it on my jog last night, it could have been I had just played softball, I didn't push myself too hard, I just gave blood Friday, so I just listened to my body! I jogged .75 miles and I finshed up by walking 1.20, and then I did 3.38 on the bike!

Tracking my food has also gone well this week too! I bought some Nutella and have been spreading that on my 35 bread, I use one tablespoon total for breakfast, it is quite high in cals, but sure taste great and does keep me full until lunch time! ** I'm wondering if I'm somewhat allergic** I've been very itchy yesterday and today both, so I'm keeping an eye on that!

Tonight was Nini's Bday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY NINI, so we celebrated with her tonight, and had her over for dinner, and I did eat one cupcake, not horrible.

WEIGH IN RESULTS......................................... -2.0 lbs, yay, yay, yay! I was doing the happy dance at work on Monday, love to see the scales go down, so rewarding!

I was hoping for 4 more lbs off by Sat. for the hubs work Family Fun Swim Night, so we shall see, it's do-able, with lots of hard work!

I took the kiddos to the Church garden tonight to pull weeds and help out, however, I wasn't much help at all, I didn't know the weeds were going to be nearly as tall as myself. I'm also very sore, I think I've pulled muscles in both shoulders playing ball last night and just playing around with both boys, or could have been when they both tackled me to the ground,..............who knows!
It was fun for the boys to see a large garden and get to help pick, made my heart happy, I grew up on a farm and learned so much from it!

Right before we left, Bre man got sick, and threw-up everywhere :-( Bless his heart! We came home and he has been fine, he did that yesterday too, I told him to lay down and rest and he has been such an angel all evening! I just hate when they don't feel good, he doesn't act sick, so not sure what is going on!

Lot's of fun stuff this week with the Hubs work family fun night, and we have a big weekend planned!

Goals for August-50 mile Challenge

I'm actually doing a post on the first day of the month! --YAY for progress!

So here are my goals for August:

*I'm taking the 50 mile challenge-more on this in a minute.
*lose an additional 10 lbs
*continue working out 20 days a month
*have less cheat days on the diet
*work more on arms and upper body strength
*continue to drink more water and less diet coke

These goals are definitely do-able, but the boys are getting ready to start fall baseball, and school starts next week, so will be a bit more challenging getting to the gym. Going to have to revamp my workout schedule.

So I saw one blogger post about a 50 mile challenge, while her challenge is over, I thought it would be great to do one on my own for the month of August. The 50 miles can be a combo of stationary bike, treadmill, elliptical machine at the gym.

I'm starting off great, I got in 6.50 miles on the bike tonight and 1.20 on the treadmill! This is usually what I do at the gym every night, so doing a lil over 7 miles a day, should be very easy to get this in. Would mean I'd have to work out about 7 days this month, and I typically get in 20 per month, because I'm trying to train to jog an entire 5K, I still have plenty of time to train for the Black Cat.

A huge thanks to the hubs for getting the Ipod loaded with some of my favorite songs, that definitely helps to keep me going!

I'm still wondering when the weight is going to start coming off at a regular rate, I've lost 2 pounds, and the scale is still moving down, so that's good!

I love a good challenge, wish me luck!

I DID IT!!!!

Last night was the Tiki Trot 5K and I did it! I wanted to have a time of sub 44 mins, but wasn't sure, since this race was on a cross country track, and to quote their website said, One of the toughest cross country tracks in the state. I'm not sure why that didn't send red flags up, or even let me doubt myself, but WOW........................is all I can say...........................WOW.

When I started out running and saw hills that were straight up, (no joke) I was thinking to myself, ok I will just deal with a time of 50 mins, because I can't try to beat my prior 5K times that were all on pavement and on 65 degree nights, this run was 80 degrees with rough terrain!

So my time.....................................drum roll please................................43 something mins! woot woot!

I will take it! I was also the last runner to finish, everyone behind me were walkers, the race only had about 150-200 participants, and the one I normally do has two thousand people, so it played tricks on my mind!

I surely did pray that dad was right there running with me, he was always proud of me when I'd run, he was the fastest runner in his high school, very athletic. I get the athletic part from him but not running! After he was diagnosed with cancer, he said to me "want to race? I can still beat you with cancer" no joke, we raced, he won. The old man beat me at age 64, sad for sure! :)

Melanie's family came to the race as well as my hubs and boys, I was so glad my family was there,  Melanie's son, Logan ran the 5K as well, he finished in 36 ish mins. and he knew I wanted to beat 44 mins. so he came and ran with me about 300 yards before the finish line, he was so encouraging, telling me to come on we are at 41 mins, come on and ran to the finish line with me, so so sweet of him! :)

My hubs took pics and my boys were clapping and wanted to run in with me, but they were also writing down times and asked for no one but the participants to run thru the finish line, I was so excited my family got to come, and hope they can come to future races too.

We all ate free pizza after it was over and plenty of water, then headed to the pool to take a swim, it was chilly water but felt so good.

Here are our pictures! :)

race bib

pre race-still thinking this will be easy

glad to see family and finish line

 

post race, praising God I finished without dying!

Jogging, jogging and more jogging

Ok, so I've been jogging, we won't call it running just yet! But I WILL get there! It's getting some easier, but I wouldn't call it easy by any stretch of the means! :) The first 4-5 jogs I was extremely sore, like taking ibuprofen like candy sore! My lower body is pretty fit, from coaching baseball, and playing softball, however jogging for a mile at a time must just work different muscles.
I've jogged about 12-13 miles this month, that is huge for me! I have also seen some definition in my thighs, the outside of my thighs, my problem area is the inside of my thighs, so boo on that one.

I haven't seen any weight loss, but clothes are fitting better, so I must be losing inches versus pounds. I'm still tracking everything in MFP, and I'm shooting for losing another 30 lbs like I did in the past! I've only gained back 17 of those, sheesh!

I've signed up to run jog this 5K, excited for sure!

picture from FS website

 

 

Melanie is going to jog this with me! I'm super excited to have a friend to jog with! That being said, when the Black Cat Chase 5K comes up, I'm hoping to run the entire thing and beat my time, so not going to hang with any friends on that race, so maybe we can all meet for Pizza afterwards downtown, the last two races I did for fun, not for time, so I enjoyed jogging with a friend, neither held me back, but I just want to be on my own, and by that time, I should be able to do a 10-11 min mile pace!

I've also signed up to do a Tough Mudder in Sept! Black Cat is in Oct. My Aug. race I had to cancel because the hubs work is having a pool party family fun night, and I don't want to miss that. Although I'm sad to miss the Midsummer's night run, I love to run at night, but oh well, maybe next year!

 

The Tiki Trot is on a cross country track, all grass, no pavement, so I think it will be a much tougher run for me, but again I'm not worried about time on this one! It's a family event, with free swimming afterwards, so I'm super stoked this will be the first run with my boys and hubs there to cheer me on. I really wanted them to come to the BC race last year, but it was cold and pouring down rain, they wouldn't have had fun at all, they are excited to come watch me! :)

 

 

I hope that I can report back a time of sub 44 mins. for the TT 5K this weekend, wish me luck!