I guess I run now

Yup, this blog doesn’t go silent unless I’m faltering and falling off the wagon.

So…we’re in Chicago visiting the inlaws, but I’m back on the 3 mile a day wagon today. I’ve lost time and distance, and (not coincidentally) no weight to speak of. UGH!

Wednesday I got in about 1/2 mile. The plan to sleep in my PJs and get up early got sidelined by my dept. chair spending the night because of a snow storm. Yeah, boss in the house was my excuse not to work out in the morning. I did do the stairs and a short walk on top of that, but then it was meetings and, for dinner, Chinese food. Walked a little over a mile on Thursday, and then traveled here yesterday.

So easy to get thrown off course.

Anyway, let’s track food:

Breakfast: 2 cups cheerios with milk
Lunch:
Dinner:

Walks: 1.5 mile walk with the inlaws, hubby, dog.

I need to make wise choices. Caught a glimpse of my butt in the mirror here and it’s horrific!

Fighting with myself again this morning. But I teach tonight until 10, so I can’t exactly leave the 3 miles until after class. So when will heading down to the basement or out the door with the dog for a 3 mile walk or walk/run become habit, second nature?

Wah, wah, wah.

It’s day 6 and listen to me complaining. Yes, it was difficult getting on the treadmill and convincing myself to do at least 1 mile. But it wasn’t hard after that first mile to convince myself to go 2.65 miles instead. Clearly all I need to do is motivate myself onto the treadmill and the rest will take care of itself.

I’m going to take breseay’s awesome advice and sleep in my workout clothes tonight. While I won’t be getting up at 4am tomorrow, I do need to be on campus for an 8am meeting and I’ve been worried about how to fit exercising in with my typical Wednesday meeting schedule. I’d hate to get ready for that early meeting, come home and get all sweaty, get ready in work clothes again, and head back to campus for an early afternoon meeting. SOOOO we’ll see if waking around 5:30 to workout works out.

Cheated last night with 1/2 pb&j after 9 and, when hubby came home from class & made a pizza (small one), I had a small slice. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Today:

Lunch is pb&j on whole wheat, 6 pretzels

Dinner: will be onion and cheese quiche (about 1/8 of the pie) with 1 cup of edamame

Snack: 12 oz home brew…this one’s a black IPA. We call it “Bipa” and it’s a bippee!

Walks: 2.65 in morning, 1.12 walk in a very snowy evening. Woo Hoo! Over goal for the day!

UPDATE: snow falling like crazy during rush hour and my university NEVER cancels classes for weather. So I did. No sense me and my students risking life, limb, and property to get to class when we can meet online. So now I’m looking forward to either walking in a winter wonderland with hubby and dog OR shoveling our driveway. Either way, it’s a workout.

Up and at ‘em.

For me the trick is going to be waking up and immediately putting on my workout clothes before heading downstairs to get the dog sorted for the morning. This way (at least so far) working out becomes the thing that’s standing between me and the rest of the day. If I wait until I’ve made coffee and come back upstairs to get into my workout clothes, I’ll make an excuse that it’s a busy day and I should just get to work and workout later.

This is on my mind this morning because this is one of those days when, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m sitting here typing this in my workout clothes, I’d find an excuse, any excuse, not to head to the basement now for day 3, week 1 of the C25K.  Oh well, once I get on the treadmill and round the first .5 mile, I’ll be into it.

Today’s food:

Lunch: leftover meatloaf (1 slice), leftover sweet potato (1/2 cup), leftover green beans (about 10)

Dinner: hubby’s teaching tonight, so instead of using that as my weekly excuse to settle in with TV and a big bowl of buttered popcorn, I’m toying with using Monday’s as my night to cook up some fish (which hubby hates). So…provided frozen scallops or salmon are reasonably priced (and I might buy enough for a few Mondays if they are), I’m planning on broiled fish with steamed brussel sprouts and sugar snap peas for dinner. Yeah, this will be a positive change to hubby’s teaching night.

Dinner redux: I never boil veggies, but thought I would tonight to minimize pots to clean since hubby’s at school…bad idea. Yeah, I burned the crap out of them, burned them dry, then toasted them up good, real good. Argh. So…dinner was scallops, frozen spinach, grits (yes, grits…they’re quick & I needed quick).

Walk/run: 2 miles in morning (and yeah, it did feel pretty dern good once I got going), .7 with dog in afternoon, now to get in the last .3

I guess I really needed to get out of the house. So we bundled up (it’s about 24, but sunny out), piled into the car, and headed to the dog park. I’m estimating close to 1.5 mile walk (and the pedometer agrees), but to be safe, I’m going to clock it at 1.2 miles. The park’s a nice walk…it’s huge, with many hills and wooded paths, and just enough snow and ice to keep things interesting. Plus the dog loved it.

Now I just need to get another 1.8 in and I’m done for the day. I’m sort of amazed at how well this is working out. I’ve just set a goal of 3 miles every day and each day I wake with a focus on doing just those 3 miles. I’m sure I’ll add stuff in as I go (like yesterday I did a short kettlebell workout after the morning walk), but my priority is 3 miles a day & I’m going to do it.

And while it scares me to death, after watching parts of the last season of BL (Ada and the marathon), I’ve decided to go ahead and register for a 5K in May right now. This was also the first race I ever ran as an adult, so it’s a good one to aim for over the next four months as I get myself back into shape. Hooray for goals!

Food:

Lunch: 1 egg, whole wheat toast with butter, 1/2 cup of almonds

Dinner: will be hubby’s meatloaf, sweet potato, green beans, and salad.

Walks: 1.2 mile at dogpark, 1.25 at night (18 degrees), will do the last .55 on the treadmill right now.

I’m suddenly not motivated to workout. I had a feeling this would happen: after a horrible event like yesterday’s I tend to get obsessive and try to read/watch/understand what happened. This leads to hours and hours of searching the net, which is unhealthy and unproductive and just makes me more obsessive and angry.

My thoughts go out to all the families, but especially to the family of that little girl, born on 9/11 and apparently interested in politics herself. Unbelievable. I can’t even imagine the horror, the crushing sorrow, her family is having to live with now.

I guess I’ll just load my MP3 player up with some of last night’s news programs and hit the treadmill.

Keep your family close chicks, keep them safe.

Peace.

Today was a C25K walk/run. I’m in week one, obviously. Back to the drawing board, back at it, back to “hi, my name is Robert…” It’s a beginning and I’ll be much happier when this beginning is way behind me, but I need to make a start.

I got 2 miles in. I’ll do the third tonight with hubby. Looks like I’m clocking about a 17.5 minute mile, which is pathetic, but not that far from my best run time

Meanwhile, I’m working on visualizing myself running a 5K in May and walking the 10-mile canal walk in July. More goals = good. At least for as long as those goals remain in the distant future.

Other changes: stairs. It’s two extended flights up to my office from a parking space that is (I mapped it) frequently .25 miles away. But I’m taking the big, stupid stairs from now on anyway. Damn it!

Today’s food is unknown, which is not good.

I’ve got one chicken breast in the fridge, lovely fresh sugar snap peas and brussel sprouts, so maybe some kind of pasta dish? Yeah, that might work. If I throw in some frozen spinach and fresh carrots, onion and pepper, I might be able to make the meal 1/2 veggie, 1/4 protein, and 1/4 pasta. That’ll leave me with some good leftovers too.

This week’s menu doesn’t look that healthy so far. On tap I’m planning a sausage/spinach/pasta soup and salad; hubby’s mac and cheese and salad; french onion soup and salad; quiche and salad.

I think it’s time to see what ya’ll are cooking/eating for some inspiration!

Update:

Lunch: had 1 up leftover homemade tomato soup & a grilled fontina cheese sandwich, 5 sugar snap peas

Dinner: roasted onion, shallot, garlic, carrot, and brussel sprouts with baked chicken chunks over pasta…3tbs of hubby’s yummy shallot cream sauce.

Snack: 8 oz IPA (beer)

.87 mile walk with hubby and dog and .33 more on treadmill (mostly a run to get it over with)

Total of 3.2 miles today.

1 mile down, 2 to go…

That’s what I wrote yesterday morning & I got another .6 in as well. Had a headache all morning and figured it was sinuses. But when my vision went blurry and missing in the afternoon, I knew to hightail it home: migrane.

So, a big 3-miles-a-day FAIL on day 2. But I’m going to just soldier on and make up for the lost 1.4 later in the challenge.

It’s pathetic that just one day of exercise can make me feel like I’ve got it all under control.

Although…if instead of calling this “just one day of exercise,” I call it “my first day back to exercising,” things sound a little better.

Here’s the plan. 3 miles a day, 21 miles a week, 84 miles a month. We leave for our place in Houghton, MI first of July. It’s 535 miles to the summer place. In preparation for summer, I’m going to “walk there.” I want to rack up 535 miles walking/running before the first of July & see what that does for my health and weight. Although I’ve lost some time this month already and my calculations aren’t exact yet, so I figure I need to fit in an additional 37 miles overall to make it to my goal. I’ll worry about that later. For now I just need to focus on 3 miles a day, every day.

So far today I’ve got 2 miles down with one to go. Hubby and I will walk the 1 mile together tonight unless the weather decides not to cooperate. If we don’t walk outside, I’ll be back in the basement getting that last mile in.

Food today (so far, so good):

Breakfast: coffee with half/half, 1/2 grapefruit with 2 tsp sugar

Lunch: salad with lettuce, tomato, hb egg, fresh mozzarella, and honey mustard dressing

Dinner: will be homemade tomato soup with grilled fontina cheese sandwiches on whole wheat & possibly another salad oops…totally forgot dinner out with friends, who chose Indian (my favorite, but Thai would’ve been healthier) had about 2.5 cups of chicken korma, .5 cup rice, 1 garlic naan.

Walks: 2.0 walk-run in morning, .87 walk with hubby in evening and snow, another .6 walk on treadmill (a good day)

I’m trying to load up on fruits and veggies…I’m starting to feel that winter “where are the chips and who’s got the dip” thing kick in and I’d like to stop it before it starts.

Happy day chicks!

I suck at resolutions, but “goals” I’m usually okay with.

Goal: lose enough weight to make being my current weight a distant memory (I’ll go conservative here and say 30 pounds for the year, but I’m hoping for a lot more).

Goal: eat more veggies and fewer starches. There was a time there when I was incorporating more and different veggies into my life and I’d like to get that time back again.

Goal: Walk. Run possibly, but walk definitely. I’d like hubby & me to walk in the 10-mile canal walk this summer, so I’m thinking of weekly distance increases. & I want to get back to yoga and pilates this year because both of these programs make me feel flexible, balanced, lean, and strong.

Goal: produce more of my own food…possibly through a garden this summer, but I’d also like to take a class in foraging for food. I also want to pickle, freeze, and preserve more foods this summer & I’m already kicking up the beer and cider brewing this winter to get us some reserves so that we have more choices stored away in the basement & can buy fewer commercial beers.

Goal: research Buddhism and see what’s what. I’m not religious and I’m sorry if that offends anyone reading this, but I think I’m a spiritual person in some sense.  Hubby and I attend a Unitarian Universalist church almost every week for fellowship (and because hubby sings in the choir), and I believe in Christian values like loving thy neighbor and caring for the poor and helpless among us, but I’m a doubter and have been a doubter for about 30 years now. Buddhism appeals to me because I feel like I still need a spiritual center in my life and some balance and meaning for the things I do. Anyway, this has been on my todo list for a long time now, so this it’s a good goal for the year.

Goal: be kind and generous in all things with all people (this one’s included in part because achieving this goal really makes my goals of losing weight, eating better, and exercising more seem easy by comparison). I need to be kinder. I need to be more generous with my time. I need to be more patient. I need to get my life on an even keel and think about what I say and do before I say it or do it. I need to be kind.

What are your goals or resolutions this year?

okay, not so much blizzardy today, but the blizzard of 2010 did leave us stranded in MA for three additional days: our flight that was scheduled to leave Monday at noon was canceled and the only flight we could get out after that is Thursday at noon. Our poor dog has been in the kennel for more than a week now, and if we don’t get a flight out on Thursday (we are booked on a flight, but have no seats yet), because of the new year’s eve holiday, it might be Monday before we can bail him out of the kennel.

And, of course, here we are, over-staying our welcome at my mom’s house. She’s been perfectly gracious and wonderful, of course, but there have been arguments, so it’s clear we’re pushing the limits of everyone’s tolerance here. At least we’ve been able to get over to my sister’s house yesterday and today to use the internet and get some work done.

Food’s been okay. I stepped on the scale the first morning I was here and have maintained that weight up until today, when the scale had me at a 1 pound loss for the week! Yay! Mom’s scale is also, I’m guessing, about 3 pounds under what mine is, so seeing those lower numbers every morning provided some inspiration to eat small. I’m going to record the 1 pound loss for now, hoping all the while that it’ll end up being more than that when I step on the scale at home.

My appetite is back, but I’m holding on to the memory of those small, unwanted and undesired portions, and I’m trying to duplicate that feeling with every meal.