A Good Day?

So today started off with a morning that could have signified an epically horrible day.

I dragged myself at of bed at 6:30 am to head to the gym to do my 5x400 meter sprints on the treadmill. I did them by walking .25 miles at 4.0 and then running .25 miles at 6.0 so I ended up with 2.5 miles. Toward the end I had to make my walking/recovering time a little slower so that my heart rate would go down, it was jumping up into the 190's! But, unfortunately, the last .02 of my LAST sprint I was thinking the entire time of not puking... I had to stop immediately and take deep breaths but unfortunately I had to grab my junk really quickly and make a brisk bee-line to the bathroom where I (thank GOODNESS) made it to that blessed toilet and heaved for several minutes. Next time I'll have to run my sprint a little slower at 5.8 or so and possibly run on the treadmills closer to the bathroom. Then I started "that time" while I was getting ready for work. Ugh.

Next, the girls at work were trying to make me want to kill myself all day even though I, through the goodness of my heart and apparently naive optimism, took them to the pool. Although, they did take an almost 2 hour nap later, I ended up with a splitting headache.

BUT BUT BUT, I was surprised with a day off tomorrow! Hooray! I'm going to spend the day doing my workout and tanning at the pool BY MYSELF and then cleaning the house. It'll be a good day.

PLUS, I'm down to 139.6, 3.2 lbs down from Monday and that can't be too bad since I'm sure I'm also bloating from my period which makes that amazing!  So instead of having a horrible day like I could have, I'm actually in a general pleasant mood! I've done every workout so far that's on my schedule and I feel so different now. Like everything clicked. I'm not struggling with not wanting to eat this way or having to workout. Ever since I worked out with the trainer on Monday I realized how much better it makes me feel. Like a detox of bad feelings, like I'm cleaner (even though I sweat buckets).

Tomorrow? Tomorrow is a 3 mile run, which will be ran outside so that I can soak up some more glorious sunshine.

A New Day!

Today is a beautiful day outside, so what does that mean?? Well. I'll tell you. It means that I am going to brave running outside on the road by my parents house in front of people. I know it's irrational to let 8 lbs change how you feel about running in front of people so I'm going to slap on my headphones and force myself to do it. Kicking my irrational fears in the face! Hayah! 

Also, now that it's summer I'm starting to get back into smoothies again. Last night, at the barbeque I made a fruit soup! It was essentially blended frozen peaches, orange juice, mango juice, and vanilla fat-free yogurt and I had some for breakfast this morning and it's awesome. (side note: if you add coconut rum it makes an awesome drink also...)

So today I have my run (we'll see how far I make it...2-4 miles?) and I have my last personal training session with my mom's trainer. 

It'll be a good day =) (despite weighing in at 142.8) awesome awesome.

My day...

So my day didn't go as planned. It's so SO easy to say you'll do something but then to take the easy road. It is so much easier to eat what's in front of you than to say no. We had a ton of people over at my parents' house with ribs and bread and roasted potatoes so suffice it to say, I didn't end the day well. But tomorrow is a fresh start right? RIGHT! Tomorrow begins my 16 week training plan for the Denver Rock n Roll Half Marathon! I guess it's as good a time as any start eating healthy again.

I promise myself that I will be good to my body in all ways.

Honesty

Being honest to yourself is hard. It's hard to realize that your efforts have been only half-assed, that you haven't put your whole self into your health or fitness. That you've only been half living for the past several months dipping in and out of depression. Even now I'm not quite sure as I'm making promises and plans if they'll follow through or if I'll be dedicated enough, if this will be another one of those times that I will fail only to end up deeper into a depression with lower self-esteem and another five lbs on my body. 

But, I can't convince myself to stop trying. As much as my self-worth shouldn't be tied to my weight, I also realize it's mostly about how I physically feel. Physically I feel tired and drained all the time. Even though I sleep between 9 and 10 hours a night it's a restless sleep and lately I've been finding myself  exhausted and needing a nap by the middle of the day. I can hardly drag myself to the gym or outside to exercise because I'm embarrassed to be seen. The cellulite on my legs, the jiggle of my arms, the muffin top that is constantly escaping over my jeans. I can't ignore what I'm doing to myself anymore as I run out of clothes to hide the extra weight. I see it in my face, the extra roundness that I can't cleverly hide using different angles in pictures anymore.

So here I am, I've come to the conclusion that there's no other way but to overcome my fears at the gym (I still can't face running outside as cars pass) and to dedicate myself to eating healthy. My clothes don't fit, even my size 4's aren't 'truly' size 4's anymore with how stretched they are and one of my best friends and old roommate is getting married 3 weeks from tomorrow and my bridesmaid dress doesn't fit. I suffer no illusions that I can lose 12 lbs by then to fit into my bridesmaids dress and I'm positive I'll be purchasing a new one in a size 6 but I can at least work on myself until then. 

Today, this morning, I weighted in at 142.4. The highest weight I've been in years and my plea to God is that I'll never see that number again. I've decided to cut my sugar intake drastically because I believe that I have a sugar addiction and it's been triggering several of my binges. Today, being the first day, I almost let myself binge, telling myself that I'll start on Monday. And aren't Mondays the best day to start diets anyway? It's simpler that way... but I realized I was lying to myself and thank goodness I did not because I would have felt so incredibly horrible and hopeless. 

My meals today

Breakfast: 1 banana

                 27 emerald roasted almonds

Lunch: 2 pieces borriello brothers cheese pizza

           2 garlic knots ^^

In about an hour or two after I finish digesting my large lunch I'm going to drag myself to the gym to run 2-3 miles on the treadmill and possibly spend the rest of the hour on the elliptical.

Here we go again

Healthy n Shaz

I've packed muh eatin's for tomorrow!

Breakfast:
Cinnamon Banana and peach baked oatmeal
1 banana

Lunch:
1.5 tbsp maranatha almond butter
1 tbsp jelly
2 slices 45 cal Sara Lee Whole Grain bread
1/2 c. cottage cheese

Snacks:
Kashi TLC pecan pumpkin granola bar
Pear
Gogurt
1 c. sugar free jello

Dinner:
2.6 oz. chicken breast
2/3 c. roasted brussel sprouts
1/2 c. rosemary garlic couscous

Total of...badadadaddaadadadada (drumroll)

1,338 calories- 20% fat, 58% carb, 22% protein

Bazinga

Disney Princess Half Marathon!

It was AH-MAZING! And I'm counting down the days until next years race (because I'm soooo doing that one too!) I finished the race much slower than I wanted to at 3:11:22 but it's still faster than the last time I ran one at 3:17:something. So there's that.

So what am I doing now? Now I am training for the Nashville Rock n Roll Half Marathon on April 28. My goal for this is to stick to a training plan for the next 53 days until then. I really want to see how eating well and training hard will affect my time and my abilities. I didn't run for an entire month before the Disney Princess Half so I think that really affected my time.

However, I am still struggling with not eating well while I'm at work. My problem is that I get so stressed out from the kids screaming and throwing tantrums and all my duties that I have to get done and activities to take them to so I turn to food. It's the quickest easiest way to find comfort for me and it's always available. I really need to do some thinking about ways that I can deal with stress like that without turning to food. Also, I need to think about ways that I can prevent binges at work by planning ahead.

Tomorrow will be a long day, I work from 6 am to 7 pm so I'm planning on doing my lifting workout at work.

Day 2

Weight: 137.0

That's good, at least some of how much I weigh is bloat (yay). Today I'm super struggling with not overeating I'm not sure why. I feel like I've conditioned my body to want to eat when I'm bored or when I have too much on my mind. Like, it's my weigh to de-stress. Unfortunately, losing weight is stressful and which makes me want to eat which causes me to gain weight and need to diet and exercise. Unfortunate.

My current way to end my day is to go home and watch tv with my roomie or alone in my bedroom. I've gotten through 5 seasons of Greek on Netflix shockingly fast because of this..hmmm. I think I need to look at exercise after or before work as my way to deal with stress because eating is obviously not working.

So, as of right now I've stayed within my calories for today, but I'm pretty full so dinner will be light soup after I go running. Yesterday I didn't get to my running because every time I moved I wanted to puke I was so nauseous. I started a new pack of birth control on Sunday and I was having my adjustment period but so far so good for today!

Day 1 of 66

starting weight: 138.2
goal weight: 125.0

so that's a bummer but I suppose there needs to be a starting point right? I packed a lunch of a whole wheat tortilla to make a cheese quesadilla with a side of fruit plus some yogurt and my diet Dr pepper. Breakfast this morning was 1/3 cup of fat free Greek yogurt with sliced bananas and strawberries.

should be a good day :-)

Wise Wise Words

66 Days

Things have been bad guys, like super bad. I've been telling myself for the past 2 months that I need to commit and lose weight but I've only been half-assing it. The result? The result is feeling bloated, unsexy, full all the time, embarrassment, tight fitting clothes etc etc. Who doesn't know how this feels? Anyway. Same old story, yada yada yada. I'm making a promise to myself that I AM going to see this through. I have so many upcoming changes in my life that I really want to feel good and confident about myself for. My half marathon is in exactly one week in Disney World (I haven't ran or exercised in 3 weeks) and I need to run at least a bit this week so I don't just keel over and die and take out a few runners with me.

Today I weighed in at 136.8- although, to be fair, today is the first day of 'that time' so I'm totally bloated and I have had a crap load of salt in the past couple of days. But, still, no excuses. That weight is NOT ok and I'm not going to see it again.

Going back to eating 1200 calories a day, tracking in Disney is going to be HARD but I've eaten healthy there before and I can do it again. Plus, Lent starts on Wednesday (Methodists do it too!) and I'm giving up chocolate so no Mickey shaped ice cream bars for this gal!

Also! Though my race is in a week, I need to run a few miles a couple of times this week just to remind my body what it needs to do soon. My next half marathon is in Nashville on April 28- 66 days from tomorrow. For right now I'm going to focus on running 3-4 days a week, cross training 2-3 times a week and getting in weight lifting at least once! After this race I want to concentrate more on heavy lifting but that'll have to wait because there are only so many days and hours in my week.

66 days you guys! My new goal weight is 125.0 (more realistic for me) so I have 11.8 lbs to go. Tonight I'll be making my breakfast, lunch, and snacks to take with me tomorrow =)

Weight lifting?!

Have you ever gotten up early to go to the gym to do your cardio AND THEN strength? I have. After you got done with your cardio did you skip over to the hundred of machines and did a double take because you have no idea how to use them? I did. Did you wander to the free weights because you have *some* experience with those only to stop and stare at all the meathead guys and then awkwardly run away? I did.

Yup. I'm a big chicken. But I made one of the biggest beginner mistakes! You should always go to the gym with a plan!! I didn't know what I wanted to do or what muscle groups to work or anything and I ended up wandering over to the stretch area and pulled out my mat and did some ab work and pushups (ow).

The point of this? MAKE A PLAN.

1/11

Last night I got pretty irritated when I tried going to the gym. I hate that the gym is crazy busy right now because everyone wants to lose weight and it's the 3rd night in a row that I've tried going at 6:00 pm and haven't gotten a parking spot and so had to leave. And I also hate that I'm part of this crowd. Because obviously I'm a hypocrite.

On another note, pretty sore today. Wtf mate?? 2 sets of 10 pushups kills my shoulders?? Since when?! But, alas, it is so! I need to start working on these because my arms are noodles now.

I was suppose to get up and workout this morning, but did that happen? No. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. I have been on a weird sleep schedule for a few months now where I go to sleep around midnight or later but I have to get up at 7 or earlier for work. So last night when I amazingly fell asleep around 9:30 I just decided to go with it and take this morning to sleep. Which is tooooootally fine with me!

Anyway, so the moral of the story is no I didn't go to the gym today, but I'll probably suck it up and do a lifting video at my apartment. Can I get a hell yea?! HELL YEA! (not sure where that came from)

Inspiration

She is my inspiration, I love her

Crissgetsfit.wordpress.com

Interval training

I made it to the gym this morning!! I went last night but, unfortunately all these rude people were there with their stupid resolutions to lose weight and I ended up being one of about 40 cars circling the parking lot for a spot. I ended up leaving and went grocery shopping for some healthy food instead and did my workout this morning. I mean, it worked out, but seriously people?? I only wanted a treadmill for like 30 minutes!!

This mornings workout was my fancy pants interval training which was great because it made the time go by so much more quickly. So here's what I did

0:00-5:00- warmup (yay I actually did one!)
5:00-25:00- alternated every other minute going fast then easy. I did fast at a 6.0 and my easy at 4.5. I'm hoping to bump this up as I keep doing it
25:00-30:00- cool down

After that I did some stretches on the floor to make sure I didn't seize up and fall down the stairs (unfortunate) and I did 2 sets of 20 of side to side ab work with an 8 lb ball and then 2 sets of 10 of pushups. Then I pretty much felt dead and stumbled around and rookie a shower and went to work so I can be fabulous!!

Spinach for breakfast

So some things that the trainer said on Saturday about my diet was that I needed to concentrate on getting mostly protein and some carbs and some fat. He said I wasn't eating enough fat, strange right? He also doesn't condone that many dairy products like fatty cheese. But, cottage cheese, some milk and Greek and low fat yogurts were good.

Anyway, he told me that he eats eggs every morning for breakfast. So this morning I scrambled 2 eggs with a large handful of fresh spinach with just a tad of cheese for flavor and one piece of toast. I've never tried to add veggies to my eggs but I can honestly say these were the best eggs I've ever made and they were so so filling, I'm still full even now! My breakfast breakdown:

Calories: 279
Fat: 15
Carbs: 15
Protein: 19
Fiber: 3

Chicken & Biscuits

^^^^What I'd like to eat.

What I should eat- protein, vegetables, less carbs and less cheese.

String cheese is totally a gateway cheese! But yesterday I didn't have ANY aren't you proud?! I ate cottage cheese which is awesome but not the same. Sad.

Yesterday I woke up with the sudden desire to rejoin my old fancy pants gym, Lifetime Fitness so after work I headed over to the small YMCA and gave them the boot and then went to fancy pants gym and joined! I took a tour of the gym with an older Korean couple who kept giving my nose ring the stink eye and complaining about the noise and all the people. So there's that, I shelled out $110.12 for the first month and to for the joining fee. Score.

Being fit is making me go broke.

BUT BUT BUT, I decided to go back because of all their awesome resources that I can use

ie. The millions of treadmills and other assorted machines, the really good fitness classes (I'm looking at you spinning!), the several pools-- my favorite feature, they have a master's swimming for people like me and for people who are training for triathlons (my next goal) and it's all associated with USA Swimming and in the summer they have meets and whatnot. They also have a spa, a cafe, rock climbing walls etc etc etc

Today I hopped on over there and got myself assessed for my fitness and all that madness. My results? Not the best, but better than last May (success? sure).

Here are my results:

Kylie Williams

Height: 5'2"      Weight: 135 (hush you)     BMI: 24.7 (see, I'm still healthy)   Age: 22

I'm 26.82% body fat-- The trainer said I should shoot for 20% body fat which I want to say is about 10-15 lbs of fat, but I also want to gain muscles so I imagine that it'll be about 10 lbs less than I am now with the added muscle. The average for my age is 22% so apparently I'm at 46 years old for my body composition

I then did a flexibility test like you did in grade school where you put your feet against the box and you lean over and push the thing. I pushed it 16 inches which is bad. The average for my age is 19 inches, so they placed me at about 51 years old for that.

Then I did a muscular strength and endurance test--pushups. They made me do them on my knees, which I guess is the standard way for women (lame.) and I did the max 30 in no time so that put me at 18 years old. Apparently the average is 17 pushups, which makes me sad for people who have no upper body strength. Lift weights people!

I also realized that when I actually pay attention to what I eat and try to be healthy I don't actually eat enough calories-- I usually try to stay between 1200-1400. My minimum daily caloric intake should be 1429 and I should be eating up to 300 more calories on days I exercise even if I want to lose weight. So the trainer told me to eat between 1400-1700 calories a day. I made the executive decision to go back to calorie counting instead of Weight Watchers so that I can make sure that I'm eating enough, because who doesn't like to eat more when they can?!

Another really valuable piece of information the trainer gave me was about training for my half marathon that's coming up in 7 weeks. He told me that because I have so little time to train (woops) that I should focus on doing 2-3 sprint/interval days a week for 20-30 minutes and then 2 distance days a week. He said that the intervals will really condition me for the running and the distance days are so my body can get use to the distance. So that's what I'm going to focus on, 2-3 interval days, 2 distance days, and 1 snowboarding day.

So what I'm taking away from this is I have a metabolic age of 33 and I actually need to train for my half marathon and eat healthy, who knew?!

If you have nothing nice to say...

Haven't we all heard this? Something that I'm going to start working on is appreciating my God given body. I have to accept the fact that I won't look like a super athlete or a model. I'm 5'2" for goodness sake! And really, what's wrong with my shape anyway? Nothing. Yes I have a few pounds to lose and that'll get done. But there's no point hoping and wishing for someone else's body. I bet some girl somewhere would be happy to have mine. So I should be too.

Just a piece of my thoughts

Well hey there 2012

Where have I been the past several weeks? I'm not entirely sure. The month of December flew by super quickly. I was busy with work and then we had company for a week and spent that time skiing and then I went to Disney World with my family for another week and then Christmas came and went and the first week of January is almost done. Crazy!

You know what really disrupts your training schedule? Being lazy. And tires. I have been fighting these two things since I got back from Disney and it has been really hard to get back into everything and being super dedicated.

And Disney? Disney was awesome and I even tried to watch what I ate and didn't walk away any heavier (probably helped that we averaged 10 miles of walking a day-- yea, we kept track.)

But since I've gotten back? Bad news bears. I've even struggling daily with eating which in turn affects my exercising which means Kylie is almost back to where she started. Shoot. I'm going to hedge a guess that I'm about 135.0. I have 10 lbs to lose and a half marathon to train for. I had a dream last night about realizing the day before that yes, yes I do have to run it the next day and I was terrified.

So what does this mean for today?

Today I will:

- eat healthy, I work 13 hours today and working out just isn't in the cards until Saturday. Maaaaaybe tomorrow if I sleep more than the 2 hours I got last night
- stay away from string cheese, it's a gateway cheese
- eat only when hungry! This is very important! When I eat when I'm not hungry it usually deteriorates to stuffing myself which = food baby
- make a healthy dinner, I'm going to make some Italian wedding soup tonight and it's going to give me a TON of leftovers

Also, I hereby promise to write more in my blog. For some reason there's a correlation with me doing well in my training/weight loss and writing in this blog. Accountability and all that nonsense. :-)