Friday, February 18, 2011

Buckling down AGAIN!

With swimsuit season quickly approach in the sunshine state I am realizing more and more that I have a little extra weight or more importantly jiggling than I would like. So I am once again buckling down. I really think it's important to do from time to time. Sure it would be better if I just ate healthy and got regular exercise all the time, but as most of you know, that just doesn't happen. So I am buckling down again. I'm saying good bye to sugar and "white" foods and embrassing, lean proteins, veggies, and fruit. I will add back in healthy carbs after some time, but really it's best for me to just purge them completely for a bit so that I can detox from them and not crave them so much. This will not be the case on my long run days, I will eat higher level of healthy carbs on those days for the energy but for the most part it's lean meats, and veggies, with fruit as a "treat" each day. I know it's what best for me, and I see results every single time I do it, but it's still not "fun".

On the running side of things. I do my half marathon in 9 days. I am excited and a little nervous. I have come to learn that I don't really like distance running because of the time it takes so after my race I will go back down to running for an hour or less at a time. I also want to increase my strength training and add in biking just for variety. So give me a couple months, then bring on bathing suit season. :)

Monday, February 7, 2011

Running

On Saturday I set out to do my weekly long run. I have learned in the last few months that I HATE long runs. It's not so much the running, it's that I just get so bored. And to make matters even worse my Ipod wasn't charged. So I ran for 2 hours and 30 minutes with nothing but my own thoughts. But I did complete 12 miles, which thrills me. Actually I ran 11 miles, and ended up walking the last mile, but I'm still okay with that. I've got 3 more weeks before my half marathon. And I am just happy that I am going through with this experiance. I don't care anymore if I have to walk a small amount of the run (although my goal is to not stop), and I don't care how long it takes me (although my goal is to do it in under 3 hrs). I'm not a fast runner, I am still a little bit overweight and I just don't care that much anymore. I just want to do it to say that I CAN do it. I'm not breaking any records, and I am pretty sure this is the only one I will ever do, but it's still something that I can say I trained for and completed. After this I will go back to shorter runs, and I may add biking one a week just for some fun. But no matter what I do I'm just going to keep moving.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

My battle with weight

I started this blog a long time ago to share pictures and stories of my girls with my friends and family, but then facebook got going and now I don't have a need to do that anymore. So I have this blog open, but haven't really decided what I wanted to do with it, if anything. I am not very good with words, I'm not all that interesting, and I don't really have anything profound to say. However I am dealing with my weight and so many people today are. Being healthy is important for me not only as a person, but as a mom to 3 little girls who I want to teach proper nutrition too. We are bombarded everyday with the "right" way to eat. Only eat organic, only buy locally grown food, become a vegan, eat low fat, stay away from carbs etc.... But what happens if you are a picky eater? Does that mean you can't still be healthy? What happens if your husband has a very high matabalism and needs to eat high levels of protein at each meal (my case?) What happens if you are packing lunch for 2 kids, and a husband, and following a "diet plan" and you are doing all of that on a budget? Do you use coupons.com to save, or follow e-mealz.com or just wing it? There are a million different plans programs, and books out there to tell us how to eat healthy in the right way.

So I've got all that bouncing around in my head as I try to decide what is best for my family. And it really comes down to the age old, eat less than you burn off. It's a mathmatecial thing, which for those of you who know me know I am horrible at math. ;) But I've learned in my getting healthy journey that it even goes beyond just eating less than I burn off. I can eat a cinnamon roll for breakfast (200 cal), and a candy bar for lunch (200 cal), and a small fast food burger for dinner (500 cal), and have rice cakes for a snack (130) and drink no calorie drinks throught out the day, and I've only reached 1030 calories for the day. I can burn that off by getting 30 minutes of exercise in and just moving throughout my day from point A to point B. But the problem with that is that I would be hungry or think I was hungry all day long. I would crave more sweets, and I would feel sluggish, and grouchy. Because even though I ate less than I burned off, I didn't eat well. And there is the key for me. It is simply a math thing, but it's also about feeding my body what it needs. The problem for me is that I AM a picky eater. I am not one of those people who has a wide variety of fruits and veggies that I just love. I try to like them, but I just don't. So somehow I have to figure out how to make what healthy food that I DO like to eat, work well for my body.

So my current goal right now is to lose about 15 more pounds, and maybe even more than that depending on how I am feeling. While running 20+ plus miles a week. I have a half marathon in about 3.5 weeks. After that I will drop my running down to at LEAST 10 miles a week, and add in some other kinds of exercise to keep it interesting, and to get me through the hot summer.

So this is what I am going to blog about. The ups and downs of my weight loss and eating healthy journey. Some days I may come on here and write about what I have learned and some days I may get on here and complain and feel sorry for myself. Because that's all part of the journey. There are good days, there are bad days, and everything in between. Read it if you want to, or don't if you don't want to. :) This is about me, and what I need to do to help me. If I can help someone along the way, great, if not than at least I have helped myself.