I’m so excited and not excited. Excited because I got to workout today. Not excited because it was really hard.

I decided before I went to bed last night that I wanted to try running again this morning. I had it all mentally planned out. I was going to repeat the last week i did before i got to sick to do it. I was super pumped for it. then I woke up this morning at 5:30. No lets be honest I Struggled. It was way to early for me since I had been sleeping in to get better faster. I got up though, through sheer determination.

I got dressed and kissed the hubby goodbye and set out to do 24/6 (walking/running). I did 4 minutes of walking followed by one minute of running. It felt hard. harder than I remember, but I was just grateful that I was running again. i love pushing myself. It almost feels like I’m dragging my legs. I love it .

Throughout the workout I coughed from time to time. there was nothing to bring up (sorry I know that’s gross). My body was just getting used to using the lungs to full capacity again. And boy did they hold up. i used my inhaler twice , yet it was more for insurance rather then dying for air flow. I figured in this case to be a little more safe than sorry.

 I felt so accomplished by the end of my run. I’m actually a little faster in my overall pace than before I was sick! That was a total shocker. I can’t wait to get home to update my nike+ account. All I know was that OK Go’s Invincible came on during my last two sprint sessions and hearing your invincible over and over again makes you want that full minute of sprinting.

This was something I needed though. every other time that i have gotten ill I fell of the wagon completely. That’s how I gained back a lot of weight. Now I’m more determined than ever before. I cannot wait to get home and tell the hubby. He will be so proud of me. Now to tackle eating once again . If i can fix this I’m golden. Wish me luck!

Or at least i should have been on bed rest for a few days. It turns out I had an upper respiratory infection in my chest again. Sadly the most likely cause was running in cold weather improperly dressed. It was a wake-up call to me. Of course my doctor recommended that I take a few days off of work, which I kinda did. I took two half days and then took it really easy. I was also told I was not able to exercise until my cough had subsided.

Well here I am over a full week since I got sick, and guess what? I’m still kinda sick. I still find myself having deep chesty coughs throughout the day. Also, my breathing is horrible right now. For the first few days walking to my bed was tiresome. Now I can make the 5 minute walk from my bus stop to my apartment in a lil over 10 minutes. That’s sadly an improvement.

I have been taking it really easy because I don’t want to risk getting myself sick again. For one reason I can’t afford to miss anymore work. I have a very understanding boss, but I feel it’s not professional for me to have to take so much time off. I have decided to try and ease back into running. Yes, I want to still do it.

I love the sensation I got from running and how it made me feel. I will however be smarter about what I wear when I work out. I will also listen to my body for the next couple of weeks while it readjusts to running. I don’t think I have to start all over again. I’m just going to repeat the last week I did and see how I feel. My next run is scheduled for Tuesday. To be honest, I’m really excited and scared. I don’t want to push myself to hard to fast. At the same time I miss that accomplishment feeling I get after I run. Wish me luck!

So I have been MIA since my last post for great reasons. I am sick as a dog. It started on Friday morning and by noon I had a full blown head cold. I managed to suck it up to go out to dinner with the hubby though. We went to one of my favorite restaurants for there dinner buffet again. It will probably be the last time fora few months since we’ve been eating out too much. I mostly ate veggies, which is my MO these days. I did enjoy some tandoori chicken and chicken tikka masala. I have tried to recreate both of these at home and they are only okay. They barely get rid of the craving I have for them. But trial and error shall prevail I hope.

As soon as I walked through the door I took some cold medicine. After a few hours and me only getting sicker, I decided to make some quick egg drop soup to help “loosen” things up. It did work somewhat and I was able to fall asleep after some time. Yet I found myself frequently waking throughout the night. Needless to say I did not go for my run as scheduled yesterday morning.

After some thought on the subject of exercising while sick I have made my own conclusions. If you have a simple sniffle or a light headache go for it. It will usually make me feel better afterwards more so then going home and moping. But if you have a fever a pretty decent cough or your bringing things up (sorry for the grossness here), I would recommend taking it easy. The last time I pushed myself while sick I ended up missing a week of work and laying in bed, because I was a push through it person.

I have learned it’s best for me to listen to my body when I’m sick, or I end up really really sick. So I have decided that if I’m not better on Tuesday then I will not exercise this week and focus on me. I will take the week to watch my eating and concentrate on that more so than being super active. I;m still active I walk a lot throughout the day and I work with children. Yet I will take the opportunity to get back in touch with my hunger and my body’s response to it. I will take the time to journal and get reacquainted with portion sizes ,which I have been slipping on lately.

I do have a scheduled doctors appointment on Monday, which is a pure coincidence in the matter. I will tell my doctor I’m not feeling well and take his advice. My doctor is really good about listening to me and what I have to say when I’m sick, so he will give me the advice I need at the time. Hopefully I get over this quickly because who wants to be sick in the spring time? Not me. Wish me luck!

Now that I have woken up this morning, I had some time to think about the things and the choices that I have made over the following week off from blogging. I realized that I suck at dieting. I suck at it because it seems like such a hard task and that it will never work for me. But I fail to realize that I don’t suck at it. Yes it is hard for me to keep track of what I eat and how much I eat when I don’t keep my food journal. Maybe that should be a sign to me to start to keep a food journal again.

I realized that I have been trying to lose weight fro over a year now. And in the year I lost 60 some odd pounds but I put back on fifteen. That’s a lot of weight to me now. I notice that I can’t fit into certain clothes again, and I don’t like the feeling that I get from that. I like being smaller, I liked watching the scale move down. I almost broke down in tears the other day when I realized how much weight I put back on. Yet it shouldn’t be putting me in tears. I should be inspired to keep moving forward. Then why aren’t I inspired.

Food has always been the one problem for me. I like too much good food. I love all the great salads of the world, and I can navigate my way through a produce section like a champ. So why do I eat take out? I’m a good cook ( I will toot my own horn on that one). I think it’s the lazy person in me. The lazy person that that has lived there so long and she likes the “house” just the way it is. But I don’t like it. I want to change it.

For almost a month now I have been following the conservative version of the couch to 5k program. I love it. I love running. I love that feeling of accomplishment I get after I finish a run (for the record I’m technically in month 2 because I skipped month 1). It was hard though. My lungs hurt and burned. Sometimes they still do when I’m done. I have a bad knee which hurts whenever I move for more that 20 minutes of any activity. Yet I still run. I run because I like that feeling of accomplishment. I run because I’ve committed myself to being a runner. I love the idea, and I want to embody that. Yet how many 340lbs runners do you see? Not many if any.

 I know that to be a better runner I have to get my body into shape. I have to get control of how I feed it, how I fuel it. Because my body will work for me, if I work for it. So am I ready to put in the effort?Yes. Am I ready for some hard work? Yes. Am I ready fro rough days and tears? Yes. Am I ready to do what it takes to be a better person, employee, fiancee, daughter, sister, niece and cousin? Yes I am because I want to be. Because now I’m ready. I’m ready again and I’m ready this time. More so then I have ever been.

I know I have been lacking lately. I started this running program and it’s kinda taken over my life temporarily. I promise for a full update later. Wish me luck!

I have been guzzling water today. Well water spiked with a little bit of Gatorade. I like Gatorade sometimes and it was on sale this morning. I got really thirsty after my run today. Well really thirsty was the least of my problems. My knee was bugging me the whole time before and after. also my lungs started to give out on me before my one-minute sprint was finished, TWICE! I felt like a total failure and wanted to stop after the first cycle, but I stuck it out.

By the time I got home my lungs were burning. I quickly made a green smoothie to put out the flames in my throat. I blitzed banana, strawberries, flax, orange juice, spinach and kale all together. I was so hungry when I was done that on my way to work I picked up a bagel with butter. I love carbs on exercise days. I also ate peanut butter crackers and bread with butter as well.

For lunch today I decided to eat out because I wanted to pack a light bag today. The hubby and I are going out to dinner and I wanted my load to be light. I will most likely get a veggie delight with no cheese and a bowl of soup from subway. Very filling for few calories. Plus there is the prospect of more bread! Good bread in fact. Wish me luck!

That’s how I feel as I wake up this morning. Maybe it was that cupcake i had at the children’s birthday party. Or maybe it was those lollipops I ate when I got home. Or maybe it was that piece of pizza I had beforedinner. It could have been any of those reasons why I woke up and I felt like crap. I know that it’s a little early (5am) but I have gotten up this early before. But I digress for the moment. Onto food from last night

Last night I can home and I was in the mood for burritos. The only downside was I had no ingredients to make a burrito with. Enter Pepper Jack;s restaurant. They had decent burritos there and it had what I wanted in it. I got a chicken one with rice, beans, tomatoes, onions and there was supposed to be tomatoes but I don’t remember seeing any. I added some reduced fat sour cream and I wad good to go. The spicy mixture of the burrito totally hit the spot. Also some curly fries shared with the hubby weren’t too bad either.

Which brings me to this morning. I wake up and I just feel blah. I’m still super sore and I need to stretch out really well this morning before I go for my walk/jog. I guess I’m just not looking forward to it today. Even my knee is bothering me somewhat today. I guess I can’t win. Wish me luck!

I had a fabulous breakfast this morning. I cooked about a cup of spinach then set ti to the side. I beat one egg and two egg whites together with a little bit of milk and then cooked them omelette style until they were cooked through. I put them both on a toasted and slightly buttered multi-grain English muffin with a piece of cheddar cheese. this was way better then the stuff that you get from McDonald’s and dare I say way more healthy. I mean I got dark leafy greens in there.

For lunch I took a cold grain salad I made for dinner later in the week. it’s a combination of:

• 2 cups cooked couscous
• 2 cups of cooked chickpeas
• 1 large bell pepper sauteed
• 1 small onion sauteed
• 1 garlic clove sauteed
• 1/2 cup of raisins
• 1 tbsp of either olive oil or light butter
• 1/2 cup warm chicken or veggie stock
• 2 cups of spinach chopped roughly into bite sized pieces
• 1/2 tbsp each of tumeric and gram masala
• salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients together in bowl and chill for one hour before serving. This is a really filling meal and has carbs, protein and fats all rolled into one tasty dish. It probably serves 3-4 good sized portions. It’s a nice easy meal for a night when you don’t want to cook or its hot. just throw it all together and let it sit. Wish me luck!

Yesterday was good day. Except for the jello feeling that I had in my legs all day long. Or the tightness that I felt in my chest. I just needed a really good stretching in general. But I digress. For lunch yesterday I had some plain pasta the children were having. I ate this when I realized I forgot the crackers I was going to bring for lunch. I was frustrated but soon calmed down once I realized I could eat some pasta for lunch. I had a slice of bread with margarine as well. After about 30 minutes I ate the rest of my meal, a salad topped with green peppers and tuna fish salad. It was my favorite salad I’ve had since I went to Ruby Tuesdays. IT was filling too, I did have a lot of lettuce on the plate.

About three hours later I found myself starving. I ended up eating some wheat thins, an orange I had in my bag and some sheep’s milk cheese I brought from home. I love sheep’s milk cheese. It’s very tasty and flavorful. I though I wouldn’t like it, but after trying it in the co-op I love it. That held me over until I got home from dinner and made PIZZA.

I love pizza for dinner and the hubby was nice enough to pick up some ingredients. We put peppers, mushrooms, turkey ham and way too much pizza cheese on top. This was a disaster looking of a pizza. IT was really watery and super thin in some spots. The dough would not cooperate when I was forming it and I don’t like rolling it up and starting again because it usually makes it worse for me. The good news is that this pizza tasted really well. I do love peppers, mushrooms and cheese. I could have lived without the turkey ham but I get to be lucky tonight and eat vegetarian. More on that later. Wish me luck!

Been a little tired lately and haven’t been able to blog. Not to mention I couldn’t get to the computer yesterday at lunch. Agh!  Today was good though. I went for my run/walk today right out of the bed. I’m one of those people that like to exercise right when they wake up. I don’t even eat anything when I go. I wonder if that effects me at all. Time will tell as my routines get more demanding.

I’m up to four one-minute sections of running now. it’s been hard on me. The first few runs were because of my lungs. They just couldn’t keep up, but now it’s my legs. I can actually feel them getting tired. I kinda like that feeling though because that means I’m working hard. I like this conservative couch 2 5k.  My lungs are adapting weel, now it’s all legs baby.

After the workout I had a smothie in a bowl. In the mix:

• Spinach
• strawberries
• orange juice
• banana
• ice cubes
• flax seeds

This one was finished off with some sunflower seeds on top of it in the bowl. I love the crunch. this was way more liquidy then the previous ones because I only had a little spinach and no kale!. I still enjoyed it though. I iced my knee for 15 minutes while I ate it. I can’t wait to ice it again and have Lionel stretch me out when I get home. He used to train the cross country team at his high school so he still knows some good stretches. Wish me luck!