Things-I Love-Tuesday and Level 2

It's Tuesday and I'm all about the things I love. One of my favorite bloggers is back! So my first thing that I love is Lisa's blog. Check it out, although I'm sure you already have. :)


Here are a couple of other things I love:

MY CROCS!!!!

Last year about this time my friend and I decided it was warm enough to start up our early morning walks again. We also decided to start jogging a few minutes of each walk. Unlike, this winter I had not been exercising at home during the winter months. A combination of being overweight, starting up exercising again and running caused me to have plantar fasciitis. Click on the link to learn all about it if you don't already know. I was having a lot of heel pain, especially in the mornings. It was all I could do to get up and walk out to meet my friend. Once I did, I could usually walk through the pain. I was describing my pain to another friend and she recommended that I go see a podiatrist because I probably had plantar fasciitis.

I am so glad I went to the podiatrist. Sure enough, I was diagnosed with plantar fasciitis. As part of my treatment the doctor said I should always wear shoes, even in the house. Wearing shoes in my house has always been a no-no. In fact, I did not even like wearing shoes. Anyway, the Dr. suggested I get some crocs. He said, that they should be the name brand crocs because they really are better than the knock-offs. Well, being the cheap-skate I am I was having a hard time justifying buying a pair of crocs JUST for my house. I had already bought inserts and was planning on buying an expensive pair of good-for-my-feet sandals. So when I was at the shoe store buying some new tennis shoes I was elated to see a pair of crocs on the clearance rack for just 5 or 10 dollars (I can't remember exactly)! Yes, they are pink. A kind of ugly, salmon pink but I love them! I wear them faithfully all day long inside my house. On Sundays, when I've been at church for three hours in high heels I can't wait to get home and put on my crocs.

I don't know if I would ever buy me a pair of crocs to wear outside of the house, but I sure do love the ones I have! They definitely helped cure my heel pain. After a few months of being faithful in my shoe wearing and doing the stretches the Dr. suggested for me before I got out of bed each morning the pain was gone. I have considered it a great blessing not to have gotten plantar fasciitis again once I started exercising and running this time around. I was really worried about it. So the moral of this post is, Crocs are really comfortable and you should always wear shoes! Take care of those feet, people!

Today, I decided to try Jillian's 30 day shred- Level 2. It was hard! But not any harder than the first time I did Level 1. So I am going to stick with Level 2 for now. One bonus is there are no jumping jacks, besides the warm up ones. A downside is all the static lunges and squats in the strength portion of the workout make it really hard for me to get my legs to want to move during the cardio portion!

C25K- Week four,Day one

Hello, everybody! I hope you each had a fabulous weekend. Mine was great! My husband and I finally went and saw Avatar. We saw it on the IMAX. What a beautiful movie! I was not that excited to go see it, I never am for science fiction, but I really enjoyed it. In fact, I haven't heard one person who has seen it say they didn't like it. So if anyone out there has seen it and not liked it let me know, just curious.

As far as my eating went this weekend, I did a little better on Saturday than I have on past Saturdays. However, I did have a bit of loss of control on Sunday. I won't give you all the boring, yummy details but let's just say it involved tortilla chips and candy skor baking pieces. No, I did not melt candy skor on tortilla chips, sillies! I ate them at separate times. I did get on the treadmill on Saturday morning for a walk at an incline. Exercising a little on weekends helps me stay more on track.

This morning was day one of week four of my C25K training. And....I could not complete it. It looks like I will be repeating it. This week's training is jogging 3 minutes, walking 90 seconds, jogging 5 minutes, walking 2 1/2 minutes, jogging 3 minutes, walking 90 minutes and then jogging 5 minutes. I made it all the way until the final 5 minutes of jogging. I only jogged about 2 1/2 minutes. I knew going into the training that I may have to repeat days or even weeks, but I am still disappointed. I am mostly disappointed because I think I failed this one mentally. From the time I saw what this week's training was (I just looked last Friday) I began thinking how hard it was going to be. I wasn't sure I could do 5 minutes of jogging at once, let alone twice in one session. I was telling my family how hard it was going to be this morning before I got on the treadmill. And then I forgot my mantra, "I can do hard things"! My legs truly were tired by the last 5 minute interval, but I think my mind is really what did me in. I will do better on Wednesday! I will have a positive attitude about it. If my brain is thinking good thoughts and I still can't physically do it, then I will be okay with repeating this week.

I hope everyone is having a great Monday!

My Weight Watchers group & C25k

Hi everybody!

First of all, I want to thank everybody for your kind comments on my last post. I hope you know how much they mean to me. A few weeks ago I was explaining my blog and the weight loss blogging community to my friend, who does Weight Watchers. And I said, "My blog friends and followers are my Weight Watchers group!".

I have never wanted to spend the money to go to Weight Watchers or on any other type of weight loss program. In fact, I have been holding out on getting a gym membership until the community fitness center near me opens (which I am sad to know won't be until early 2011) because it will be cheaper. Maybe I haven't done these things because I didn't have confidence I could stick with things and I would lose money or maybe I'm just a cheapskate! So far my current plan seems to be working and I will stick to it unless it stops being effective.

Anyway, back to my weight watchers group. I realize that a big part of the success I have had so far has been accountability on my blog and receiving inspiration and support from you all through your comments and reading your blogs. I was going to mention my WW group members by name but don't want to miss anyone. So let's just say that my group is very diverse in age and background. Some in my group are older than me and help me to know that you are never too old to change your ending. Some in my group are younger than me and remind me of how much fun being young can be and make me wish I had half their energy. Everyone has a different background and story. When I read about their stories, I am inspired. Some in my group have lost A LOT of weight and are either maintaining or have just a little to go. These people remind me that I can do it, too and always share wisdom. Some people have been on the journey for awhile and are half-way to their goal weight. These people also inspire me because they have come so far, yet still have far to go and are happily plugging along. Some are new to the journey like me. These people, help me to know that I am not alone. We have similar struggles and similar successes. I love following along with them. Some make me laugh, some make me cry. All inspire me. Thank you for being part of my WW group!

Today I completed week 3 of the C25k training! Yay for me! I only printed off the first three weeks to follow along with while on the treadmill so I hadn't really looked ahead to next week until yesterday. Holy cow, I'm nervous! This week's training alternated between 1.5 minutes running then 1.5 minutes walking and then 3 minutes of each. I did two circuits of this. Next week 5 minute intervals of running are thrown in and there is less walking between each interval. I can do this, I can do hard things!

I have had a hard time blogging and reading blogs the last couple of days. My kids are still on their 3 week break from school. I've been getting in my exercise time, but after that it has been all about the kids. We've done some fun things. Only one more week to go and then maybe I can get back to a regular blogging and blog reading schedule.

Have a great weekend!

Weigh-In Wednesday

Well, today was my weigh-in. And it looks as if I broke my 1-2-1 pattern after all, just not in the way I wanted to. I was hoping for a 2 pound loss on a one pound week, but instead got a 1.5 pound loss this week, which according to the pattern my body has been following, should have been 2 lbs. That's not to say I am not happy with my loss. I now weigh 191 lbs, I can see the 180's on the horizon and I am just .5 away from a total of 15 lbs. lost!

I want to be able to eat "treats" once in awhile without feeling guilty, as long as they fit into my calorie allowance. This past weekend, I ate coldstone ice cream (kid's size) on Saturday and a slice of coldstone ice cream cake on Sunday. Sunday, I went over my calorie allowance. Now, I find myself feeling guilty and thinking "would I have seen that 2 lb loss had I not had those treats?". The answer is probably, "probably". So here's the deal. I am going to be more careful about the treats I allow myself on weekends. Weekends are not freebies! Even if the treat fits into my calorie budget, the fat may not. I still think treats are okay once in awhile, I just have to learn to moderate more. I don't want to second guess myself come weigh-in day.

Yesterday, was a day off from blogging as I attended my cousin's funeral. It was a very emotional draining day. The cousin was from my dad's side of the family. I have never been very close to my dad's family and really don't know them all that well. Sad to say, I have gotten to know a few of them better on Facebook over the past couple of years than over my whole life. Anyway, seeing all of them under such terrible circumstances was draining. Not to mention, without going into a lot of detail, the family has some definite issues that were magnified yesterday and it all added to the sadness.

I made sure I packed myself a healthy lunch (turkey sandwich and carrots) . I knew I would not be able to stay for the family lunch that the church prepared for us because I had to pick up my kids. The funeral was at lunchtime. I'm glad I packed a lunch because otherwise I would have for sure stopped at a drive-thru and it is pretty hard to eat a salad while driving so I probably would not have picked a salad.

I knew I would be gone most of the day and so I planned ahead of time what we would have for dinner. I wanted something simple, but healthy. I usually eat fish for dinner the day before my weigh-in so I planned on broiling up some salmon. By the time I got home, I was really tired. I started thinking to myself, "I don't want to cook, I've had an emotionally draining day, I "deserve" to not have to cook."I thought about just getting fast food for dinner. Then I thought about my recent challenge with 15 in 15. We are supposed to figure out why we sabotage our goals just because we think we "deserve" to eat something off plan or not exercise. I think Annie's quote is "Why do you think you do not deserve to reach your goals?" No healthy fast food sounded good and certainly not better than broiled salmon. I thought about how eating off plan would have made for an even more crummy day. I also thought about how I deserved to take care of myself, both physically and emotionally. Eating fast food would not help me in either of those ways. So, I determined what I did deserve was a 15 minute catnap on the couch. I took my little nap and was ready to broil up some salmon. Dinner was easy and it was good. Now that is what I call a NSV (non-scale victory) people!

I hope everyone has a great Wednesday!

P.S. Has anyone else noticed that Lisa from "One Mom's Weight Loss" has removed her blog and disappeared. I'm so sad. Her blog was a fave of mine. I hope she is well and just decided to quit blogging but hasn't given up on her goals.

P.S.S.- I almost forgot! I completed Week 3, Day 2 of the C25k program this morning!

A New Challenge and an Award

I want to thank LeAnne for awarding me the sunshine award! It is nice to know that my blog is not only benefiting me a ton but bringing some sunshine and inspiration to others!



I am supposed to pass this award onto some other sunshiney bloggers. I love reading blogs! In fact, I wish I had more time to do so. Here are twelve of my faves:

Kristin @ A Fit Me
Lisa @ One Mom's Weight Loss Blog
Mary @ Joy for Mary
Tj @ Tj's Test Kitchen
Cammy @Tippy Toe Diet
Kyle @ Getting Better and Better
Dawn @ 365 days to a new me
Ms.Magnetism @Mission to Lose 130 lbs
Alex @ Another Fat Girl
Tiff @ Project 365
This Girl is Losing it
Tricia @ Endurance isn't only Physical

How was your weekend? I hope great! Mine was just fine, nothing too exciting. I did the treadmill on Saturday, but that was all for exercising. And as far as eating went.....well....let's just say I went a little off plan. Pictured below is what I had for desert yesterday. Well, mine had some raspberries mixed in with it, but basically it was a red velvet cake, with lots of chocolate ice cream, chocolate ganache and raspberry filling from coldstone creamery. So yummy, but it my one slice put me over on my calories. Or maybe it was all the garlic bread I ate with my manicotti at dinner time. Oh well, today is a new day and a new week.

I wanted to tell you all about a new challenge I am participating in. A friend of mine started a group on face book called 15 in 15. The goals is to lose 15 pounds between President's Day and Memorial Day. Today starts week two so it is still early on. If you are a member of facebook and want to join the challenge, just click here. Annie, the group's administrator, is a great motivator and sends each group member messages almost everyday with daily challenges. I told her that I think she would be a great weight loss/healthy living blogger and that you would all love her. She thinks she will eventually start a blog, but for now has given me permission to post her challenges here. So far the challenges have been things like , to track food and exercise in a notebook, create an eating and exercise plan, etc. Also we were challenged to make a contract with ourselves and sign and date it. The contract looks like this:

I commit to...

I promise to...

I know how important this is because....

I will do the following...

My reward will be...

Also she had us dedicate each pound of our weight loss to a person. Since the goal is 15 pounds, this was a list of 15 people who inspire us and for who we want to become healthier for. Obviously, for my overall weight loss goal is a lot more than 15 so I will be going through my list more than once.

If I complete the challenge then I will exceed my goal of a 25 lb loss by summer. I can hardly wait!

I'm copying and pasting the next challenge, so you can see it in Annie's own words:

Okay maybe I'm not. For some reason I can't copy and paste her message. Frustrating! Anyway, today's challenge is about how we sometimes sabotage ourselves. We use excuses like, I deserve it or I'm stressed out to eat off plan or not exercise. The challenge is to identify one reason we sabotage our goals, a reason "we don't think we deserve to reach our goals". Once you've discovered a reason think of three healthy ways you can reward yourselves when you think you deserve something great. These rewards will be for times you are stressed, sad, tired, overworked or excited about your accomplishments.

Annie's words are so much better than mine so you really should join her facebook group. I will spend today thinking on the challenge and blog about it in another post.

I hope you all have a good day. Tomorrow would be a "Things That I love Tuesday" post but I don't think I'll post anything. I have another funeral to go to. This will be two funerals in 10 days. ;( A cousin passed away last week. It was a sad ending to a troubled life. I may blog about it later.

See you on Wednesday.

Doing all this for fun!?

Today I completed week 2 of the C25K training. Yay for me! I did not do it at an incline yet though. So I'm not sure if I want to repeat the week, adding an incline or move on and just deal with the difference of running outside when I actually do start running outside. After reading the comments from yesterday, I have decided to go have a proper shoe fitting and get some new shoes. I hope to do this in a couple of weeks.

Today I had an audience of three while doing Jillian's (yes, we're on a first name basis. Even my son knows her name and who she is) 30-day Shred. My children were in the room while I did the workout. They were mostly playing their nintendo ds', but they were there all the same. Gotta love breaks from school! Anyway, while doing reverse crunches my son (five years old) said, "Look at your bum, you've got a big bum!". Don't you just love the honesty of children? Anyway, my daughters got upset with him and told him that was not nice. I told them, "He shouldn't say that, but it's true. Why do you think I'm doing all this?". To which, one daughter said, "For fun!". I just laughed. But what I really wanted to say is, "Do I look like I am having fun!?, Do you see the sweat pouring down my face!? Do you think I enjoy not being able to walk up and down the stairs without being in pain?! Do you think I enjoy having a hard time washing my hair because it hurts to raise my arms!?". Maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration. I can walk up and down the stairs and wash my hair just fine....now.

Will this ever be fun? I know I can't expect to love exercise and think it is fun after just a couple of months of doing it. I have never liked exercise, which is one of the reasons I'm overweight. Although, I like the way I feel after I do the treadmill or Jillian or BL training I don't particularly like it while I am doing it. Mostly, I dread getting up in the morning to get on the treadmill and if I do look forward to a workout it is mostly because I am looking forward to the satisfaction that comes after I have completed it! I dont' think my dislike of exercising has much to do with the types of exercising I am doing. I just don't enjoy it all that much. I hope that eventually this will change. I hope that one day I will find that I do think exercising is fun! What about you all? Do you enjoy exercising? Did you have to reach a point where you enjoyed it, or have you always enjoyed it?

Two Left Feet!

Today, I opted not to do the treadmill because my shins are pretty sore and I want to be able to finish week 2 of my C25K training tomorrow. If anyone has any advice on how to cure/avoid shin splints, let me know.

But sore shins is not what this post is about. After I did my BL training I decided to pop in an old aerobic VHS tape to get some cardio in. The tape I have is one that my mom got while she was doing Jenny Craig a few years back. The last time (4 years ago) I decided to lose weight she gave me her exercise tapes. Attempting to do the aerobics workout reminded me that I do, indeed have two left feet. It also reminded me why I have always avoided actually attending a public aerobics/exercise class of any kind. I am so uncoordinated, I really can't follow along with all the dance-aerobic moves. In fact, I wonder if it is doing me any good at all because I have to concentrate on how to move my feet so much that I am probably not moving them much at all. I know that if I did this particular tape often, I would eventually get it. I think I'll stick to my treadmill and Jillian for my cardio, though.

Are all aerobic workout tapes/dvd's that way, though? Do they all contain complicated (or so it seems to me) dance moves? Or is that a 80-90's thing? Let me know. I have a friend who loves Zumba and wants me to attend a class with her. I am afraid I will just embarrass myself. For those of you who love Zumba, will my two left feet get in the way of a good workout?

Have a great Thursday, everybody! The weekend is right around the corner.