Hard Work & Dedication

Yup, I am being cheesy & quoting Dolvett from the Biggest Loser.  Last Monday I said that I would track every nibble & bite both on MyFitnessPal & Weight Watchers.   I struggle portion control and I had hoped that tracking my food intake this way it would help me stay on track.

It was tedious at times but I am so worth the effort.  I found that by tracking calories as well as points, I was making healthier choices.   This tracking technique paid off as I lost 3.4 pounds this week which makes for a 81.2 pound loss in the past 16 months.   While I did make healthier choices, I never felt deprived during the week.   I also worked out 5 days this week.   

My plan for this week:  repeat what I did last week.   I have my first 10K race on Superbowl Sunday & I am nervous about it because my left foot has been bothering me a bit.  But I got some gel insoles which I used yesterday for the first time & they seemed to have helped.   

Here's hoping for another great week!

Tracking

After I finished my workout last night, I was in my car tracking it on my Runkeeper app & I realized that I use a lot of tools to help me stay on track.  I decided to share them with you.  I will provide a link to my profile in case you want to add me.  

Runkeeper - I use this app to track all of my walks on my iPhone.  When I first started working out, I downloaded the Nike+ app on my iPhone but I could never get it to calibrate correctly.  I decided to try Runkeeper & I've been happy ever since.  It can track your walks as long as it has a GPS signal & I can also do a manual entry for my treadmill workouts.   It also tracks other activities such as cycling, skiing, & snowboarding. 

DailyMile - oh how I wish that I could sync up my Runkeeper stats to DailyMile automatically.  I like the interface for DailyMile a lot better than Runkeeper so I am tracking on both.  DailyMile does sync up to Nike+ & Garmin devices.  I also like that I can keep track of any upcoming races on it. 

Fitbit - I got mine as a Christmas gift & I am so happy with it.  It tracks my daily steps,  miles traveled, calories burned & even my sleep habits.  Pretty cool!

Fitocracy - I got an invite to this a while back but haven't explored it too much. For every workout you do, you get a certain number of points & achievements.  It's basically a game to improve your fitness.   Right now it's invite only so if you want a invite, let me know. 

MyFitnesspal - I've been using it to track my workouts and meals.   You can build a profile & based on what results you want it will tell you how many calories you should consume daily.  

Earndit -  I don't know how I heard about this rewards site but it's pretty cool.  I have my Runkeeper, Foursquare & Fitbit tied to it.  For every activity I do, I get points.  Those points get me rewards such as gift cards for energy bars, discounts at TheClymb, vitamins, shoes, apparel & basically things fitness related.  It's free to join & they have weekly challenges as well.  

I'm also on Twitter & Tumblr which I don't use for tracking per se but I can talk to a people who have the same interest as me.  And yes, I am also on Facebook.  I have a love/hate relationship to this site.   

Seems like a lot but it doesn't take a lot of time & I find it useful to see how far I've come from when I first started losing weight & working out.   

Weekly Weigh In

This week was a total failure as it regards to losing weight.  I didn't track or eat right & only exercised for 20 minutes all week.  That is beyond ridiculous.  I think my gain from last week and having no job prospects really got me down and I was sort of in a haze.  I was just existing and not living.  I don't want that. If I look back at the past couple of days, it's like a blur.

I had a gain of .8 this week.  Could've been so much worse.  Should've been so much more but perhaps I was more mindful with me eating than I originally thought.  Am I going to continue this way?  Heck no!  I decided that I am going to change things up a bit.  Normally I follow the WW PointPlus plan and I will continue to do so but I am also going to count calories.   Part of my issues with food is that I at times I have no control over portions.  Just because I can eat 4 bananas at 0 PP+ does not mean that I should.  I am going to do try this method for the next couple of weeks to see how I do.  Here's my nutritional profile on MyFitnessPal.  

I am hoping this plan will help with controlling my portions and keep me on track.  This means every bite & nibble will be tracked.  EVERY.SINGLE.ONE.   That will be hard.  

Fitness wise, I am starting where I left off last week which is Week 9 which consists of 4 days of 5K's on the treadmill and a 6 mile brisk walk during the weekend.  Since I didn't work out this past week, my body feels so much heavier and I don't feel as limber as I typically do.  It's back to the gym for me.  

During the week I read a very interesting article which lists 17 reasons why you aren't losing weight.  Reason #13 describes me and my weight loss journey: 

If you find yourself having mini self-contained internal arguments throughout the day (and you lose), or (even worse) lying to yourself about what you’re eating and doing, you’re probably also full of excuses.

I don't know why I continue to do this to myself.  This is the mental part of losing weight that I need to work on because I keep sabotaging myself.

Just keep swimming

You would think it was Christmas morning since I woke up early.  I was so excited to weigh in. I got on the scale and couldn't believe the number I saw.  I got off the scale, weighed in and got the same result.

This week I had a gain of .2 pounds.  Sigh...

I am so freaking disappointed.  I thought that I did everything right.  I worked out, I tracked my food and drank a lot of water.  But it wasn't enough this week.  I was feeling deflated because I truly did work hard this week.  

Could it be too much sodium in my diet this week?

Am I building muscles?  

Is my scale broken?  

These are just some of the things I've been thinking about all day.  I looked at my WW tracker and while I did track all my food & didn't go over my daily points value, some of my choices were high in points which meant that I wasn't eating much during the day and I had a large meal at dinner time.  I did that twice this week.  I normally eat about 5 small meals/snacks a day.  Perhaps the richer food and not enough fruit & veggies are a result of this gain.  

But if I am going to let a number dictate how I feel for the rest of the week, it won't be what the scale showed.  Instead, I am going to focus on the following numbers:

As of January 15, I have worked out a total of 625 minutes (1,000 is my monthly goal) and I have walked 44.41 miles (50 miles is my monthly goal).  Pretty awesome right?

I am going to move on from this disappointing weigh in and this week focus on my nutrition.   This week's Do Life Challenge is a scavenger hunt which looks like a lot of fun & I will try to accomplish as many as I can.  However, nutrition will be my focus.   I've also modified my training guide because I think that for me it would be more doable this way. Originally it was a 12 week guide but I've modified it to 18 weeks. The whole purpose of it was to get endurance and gain speed to be able to complete Bay to Breakers (12k) in May in under two hours.  For the next eight weeks, I will walk at least 5K 4 times a week and on the weekend increase my mileage.

• Week 9 - 6 miles (brisk)
• Week 10 - 9 miles  (easy)
• Week 11 - 7 miles (brisk)*
• Week 12 - 10 miles (easy)
• Week 13 -  8 miles (brisk)
• Week 14 - 11 easy (easy)
• Week 15 - 9 miles (brisk)
• Week 16 - 12 miles (easy)
• Week 17 - 10 miles (brisk)
• Week 18 - half marathon 

* Week 11 I will only be doing 6.2 miles since that Sunday I have my first 10k race.  

At the end of this training guide, besides the mileage on Runkeeper, I would like to have something to show for it.  I am seriously thinking of entering the Lucky Run half marathon on St Patrick's Day.  The course cut off is 4 hours & I may sound optimistic but I think I may be able to complete it in that time if I keep training.

In the meantime, just keep swimming.... 

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

This is gonna be a long post so get some tea & get comfortable :)

If you would've told me that I would be walking 8 consecutive miles in one day I would've laughed.  I never thought that I would have the endurance for it.  But today I did it.  It was hard and there were several times when I just wanted to stop but I kept on going.  Some random tidbits about my walk today:

• I am so glad that I got my Race Epic shirt this week.  It's the only long sleeve shirt that I have that fits & I wore it.  It was freezing walking on the Golden Gate Bridge and that shirt kept my nice & cozy.  
• GU's Blueberry Pomegranate Roctane gel is disgusting.  However, GU's Chocolate Outrage is so freaking good.   
• Mile 4 was gruesome.  I had a pain in my lower back and it made it a difficult mile.  
• Mile 7 was the hardest mentally.    I kept doubting whether or not I would finish my workout today.  
• This is just my experience but male runners are much friendlier than female runners.  I try to make eye contact with anyone that I pass and men just seemed to be more friendly.

I had set Runkeeper to track my pace at 18 minutes per mile.  According to the training guide I am following, today's walk was supposed to be "continuous comfortable walking" and I was supposed to walk "somewhat faster."  

In total this week, I walked 18.2 miles which is the most I've ever walked in a week.  It's incredible to me that week after week I keep upping my mileage.  My friend said it best to me this Friday when she said "you are becoming this whole different person" and she is right.   I am not the same person I was 6 months ago.  I am more determined and a bit more fearless.  I also gotta give props to Tim.  Check out his blog if you don't follow him.  He's about to hit his goal weight this week and he trained with me on this walk even though he lives across the pond.  He decided to show me up by walking 10.5 miles & getting chased by a horse.  Definitely check him out!

One of our tasks for this week's Do Life Challenge was to do two random acts of kindness.   I decided to do the following:

1. I know how much I have gotten out of the fitblr community & healthy living blogs.  I get support from them and the people who I follow & who follow me, who know exactly what I am going through because they've been there.  It's a great  group of people who have the same goal in mind.   What I decided to do was to reach out to those people who I follow on Tumblr who haven't posted in a more than 3 weeks.  I sent out a message to 12 of them reaching out.  Perhaps they have been struggling with their journey or been to busy to update.  But I wanted to let them know that I was here to support them.  
2. I love, love, love Girl Scout cookies. But before I started on Weight Watchers I could probably eat a whole box of Thin Mints in a day.  My friend's daughter is a girl scout & I wanted to support her efforts but didn't want the temptation.  So.... I ended up ordering a couple of boxes and when my friend's daughter gets them, she will be donating them to a women's shelter near her house.  

It's not often that I look forward to weigh in but I stayed on tracked this week and worked hard at the gym so I am anxious to see how much I lost.  One thing I need to improve on is my water intake. I had set a goal of drinking 5 gallons this week and I am about a gallon short.  I still drank more water than I have in the past few weeks so that's a win for me.  

Overall, I think I did my best this week.  I look forward to the challenges that next week brings & I am ready to take them on.  

Do Life Challenge: Week Two

I was sort of lame in week 1 so let's kick some booty this week. 

I didn't keep up with my push-ups, I worked out 3 out of the 5 days I should've & I gained 1.3 pounds. Blah!  But I still walked 14 miles which I think is the most I've ever walked in a week. That's good, right?  

My goals for this week will be to:

• Continue working towards losing 8 pounds (or rather 9.3 pounds) this month.  If I want to reach that goal that means I have to eat right & exercise 5 times this week.  
• Not eating after 8 was hit & miss.  A lot of the times I forgot about it. Soooo I set up my WW app to remind me to track all my food by 8pm.  That's a clear reminder to STOP EATING.
• I'm still researching strength training programs. I need to start toning up.  
• My water intake has been horrible.  I bought some diet green tea from Costco and refilled our 5 gallon of water.  My goal for this week will be to finish it all this week. Insane right?  

The top one is empty & the bottom one probably has 4.75 gallons.  Let's kill this bee-yotch!

Per the challenge, I have to go out of my way this week & perhaps do something I've never done before.  Funds are tight right now so I'll have to get creative.  

Four things I did well today:

1. Made a healthy choice while eating Mexican food today.  I chose a salad with chicken & tortilla strips with low calorie dressing instead of a carb fest. 
2. No soft drinks.  Water all the way baby!
3. I listened to my body and rested.  I wanted to work out today & take tomorrow as a rest day since it's my mom's birthday but my body was aching. 
4. Tracked all my food.  It's such a pain but so worth it. 

Weekly Weigh In

A gain of 1.3 pounds.  I knew it was going to happen.  During the middle of the week I wasn't there mentally with my weight loss.  I was feeling sorry for myself and let myself indulge a bit.  I weighed myself on Friday morning and was sort of shocked by the gain but thankfully I managed to get it down with lots of water, watching what I ate & walking 11 miles this weekend.  This sure isn't helping me with my monthly goal of losing 8 pounds but I will try to do my best to get there.

My workouts for week 8 are:

• Monday - rest day
• Tuesday - 40 minutes walking
• Wednesday - 25 minutes walking
• Thursday - 40 minutes walking
• Friday - rest day
• Saturday - 50 minutes walking
• Sunday - 8 miles 

As I've done for the past 7+ weeks, I will continue to do at least 5k on non mile days.  I just had a mini freak out seeing 8 miles.  The 7 mile workout yesterday was hard.  I'm still sore and definitely need a rest day.   But damn I am in week 8.  I remember a while back I didn't think I could walk 5 miles and now I've done 5, 6 & 7 mile workouts.

                                                                        Source: hello--healthy.tumblr.com via Marisol on Pinterest