Running without sidewalks

My new  neighborhood  has only a few sidewalks. I am seriously having  sidewalk withdrawal!! I am a simple runner, prefer to get up and walk out my door and run. Driving to a location seems like a waste of time and money  to me.

It has put a lot of things in to perspective for me, I have to find a neighborhood in my new community that has a consistent amount of sidewalks. When we were searching for a place in Tennessee that was not my main priority but now that I on on the hunt for a house to call my own it is high on the priority list.

I have to apologize for being M.I.A. I was not aware of how much this move would affect my family. I had to take some time to really get my children settled and to bring some balance back to my home. It has also allowed me to bring some new goals into my fitness journey.

I am no longer on the Weight Loss quest but I am really trying to tone and firm up my body. My major areas of concern are my butt and thighs.   I am aware that you cannot spot train but I will be focusing on those muscles more consistently. Seriously, I have had to give up that picture that I thought I would become. I am learning to accepted who I am.

 Many of us have the idea that after you lose weight, you will look like one of the fitness models on a magazine cover.  I was one of them, but we are all made differently and it just does not work like that.   The reality is losing the weight is half the battle, in order to get that look. You have to maintain your weight , healthy eating habits and keep training to achieve muscle definition.  I am not giving up my quest for what I want , I am just loving myself in the process.

So I  have found some great classes in my area, I am hitting the track at the local university and having fun mixing up my fitness quest. Above all I am no longer on the couch. I am proud to say it has been 2 years since I rolled off it. LOL!!!

My scale is broken!!!!

Yup, my scale is broken and I have been traveling,working ,packing,mothering and all those thing that have kept me from my weekly meeting. So for the first time in 22months I have no Idea how much I weigh.  It did make me realize that I just might be a "Scale B****".   I have for that past 22 months known how much I weighted down to the ounce, like a new born baby. Yeah I have taken scale breaks but nothing significant enough to brag about.

I am thinking it might be time for me to retire form the scale for a significant time. Since I am obviously obsessed with her. I am thinking of a slow tapering of weigh ins.I will maintain my weekly weigh in status until I confirm my lifetime status. I think I have a least 4 more weeks of maintenance. Then I will taper to a once a month weigh in. Since my home(girl) scale is broken,I will actually have to leave my house to weigh in!!  No more morning peaks before meetings and no more midweek estimations.

I am having a memorial service for my lovely dear friend,who  regardless of how much I cursed at, jumped on or screamed at remained faithful. That was until my 2 year had his way with her last week, I can only imagine the horrific pain my poor scale must have been in . As he dropped her ,over and over again from the side of the couch and proceeded to scoot over her with his bike.

Seriously though, I am walking away from the scale for a while to concentrate on being consistent in my regimen. So that I wont let every pound make or ruin my day. Change is a scary thing and this will definitely be  change for me. I am also buying myself a full body mirror, but I will update you on that in my next post.

Goal Day



Before 254 Pounds 27 min mile!!



 

On May 19th, 2012 at 8 am I embarked upon my final mission before my goal day.  I ran my first 10k race. Now I have run 5k's in the past while I was on  my get fit kicks. But I never trained for  them and I was never this in shape before. I learned a lot during this race. I had an ideal time that I wanted to make an  ideal  pace  that I wanted to run. Now don't get me wrong I have  run over 6 miles before, 101 times in fact. However, I have never run in pact or with all women. There were hundreds of women around me, all shapes, sizes and ages. In fact there was a 70 year old women, one minute behind me.  I used to think there was some ideal weight or shape that I needed to be. But there is no such thing as ideal, we all have it in us to push ourselves to fitness and health. I honesty wish I would not have waited to do a 10K. I could have done this  year ago. I might not have been as fast but I could have done it. Don't wait until the right time to try something do it now.  I am so excited to embark on the next phase of my journey. Don't worry I am not going anywhere, I will be still blogging my journey.  I am however in the process of planning an out of state move for my new job. So bare with me as I transition to my new home and I will be blogging from my phone until we get settled. Start today and you wont be sorry 22 months later and look at me!! 



After 150 pounds  9:18 min mile!!!



Magazine Spread

My Weight Watchers Magazine article.

My Taste Buds

I was never really fond of alcohol, in order for me to drink it has to be  fruity. In fact I must admit I really only like girly drinks.  However, in the past year I can taste even the minuscule amount of alcohol in drinks. I have to admit I have yet to find an alcohol  appealing lately.

I made the decision when it comes to food that,if  it did not like the taste of it I wouldn't eat it. I guess that will now apply to alcoholic beverages. It is funny to me because a lot of people in my life are convinced the can find a drink that I will like. They have yet to be successful and I am not looking to find that drink. I am not saying that I will never have a drink ever again but right now I am done with alcohol.

I am not sure if this puts me higher on the  uncool list, but I don't really care.  I don't mind other people drinking and I am not against the  consumption alcohol at all. Honestly to me the stuff is just nasty and  why should I drink something I don't  like.

In addition to my alcohol revelation, I found these great mock drinks by crystal light that are pretty good. 

Even though I try not to use unnatural sweeteners, I am willing to drink these occasionally because they are good.  I love the fact that I am still changing and getting stronger. This journey just keeps surprising me.

Confession Time

So I have a confession to make, today I was just off my game. I was just all over the place emotionally and stressed out. It seemed like everything that I have been trying to do lately has been difficult. So I woke up today and had my normal reasonable breakfast. Got ready for my run and then found that my iPod was not charged. So I bugged my husband for his and he looked all over for it. By the time he gave it to me, I had already talked myself out of my run.

I went about my daily tasks until lunchtime at which time I could not figure out what I wanted for lunch.  I went past several fast food joints, that I could not push myself to go into. Eventually I opted for a long drive home to prepare my own lunch. Still in a funk, I enjoyed a nice lunch at home. The evening progressed and eventually realized that I made it to 7:30 pm without completing my workout. I was curled up in my bed, in my husbands pajama shirt. I logged on to Facebook and the first thing I saw was this picture:

 Omega 3 Fitness

So I got up  and jumped into my work out gear and threw on my Insanity DVD.  Motivation comes from everywhere !!!

Boredom

I think you can get bored with even the funnest routine. Doing the same thing, day after day gets boring. I have completed P90X 3 or 4 times( lost count). I am on my second round of Insanity and I have to say " I am bored". I am always  running regardless of what program am doing , so that is just a part of my life.

The gym for me can get a bit mundane because I take all the classes and have been on every machine!!! So I am looking for something new to get me excited about. So I am dropping into a cross-fit class this weekend, it is not entirely new to me. I tried it when I first started my journey and felt too out of shape in the class. I am also signing up for a month of boot camp.  I love to workout outside and this  boot camp is outside with a new routine everyday.  Last night I started revamping  my iPod playlist, so that I have some new music to motivate me.

I just started looking into a new hybrid program of P90X and Insanity.  I just cant wait for the weather to be consistent. So I a can hike, run hills, run stairs and just move outside again.   The last two weeks I was so excited about the weather and I was outside exercising as much as possible.

I guess the moral of this story is, if you get  bored  don't give up.  Simply shake up your routine !