Double Milestone

It's been a great week! 
I've gotten in a lot of activity every day, including a few hundred squats!  I'm loving the new workout DVD I bought last week, and kicked it up from the beginner workout to the intermediate work out.  I'm loving that workout!  I wore my Garmin while I was doing it the other day just to see what my heart rate was like and it was perfect, in zone 4 for the whole workout after the warm up.  I'm also proud of the major milestone I was able to hit this week despite it being an emotional week.    

It has also been a week of Milestones.
Milestone 1.
After almost six weeks of playing with 6 ounces and landing just below that milestone of 65 pounds lost, this week I nailed it! I passed it by two pounds.  I'm now down a total of 67.4 pounds!!!  I am so excited to have finally made it over that milestone of 65 pounds!  Every week my husband does a comparison photo for me so that we can see the process and I try to wear the same clothes every week but the shirt I used to wear has gotten so big that I can't wear it.  It just hangs on me.

This is today's photo, down 67 pounds, taken just after I returned home from my solo 6km walk/run.

Down 67 Pounds and finished a 6km walk/run

Milestone 2
I went for a solo walk/run today.  I wanted to do intervals and I knew that it wouldn't work with the dog, so I left him behind and hit the road.  I walked quickly for the first 7 minutes or so and when I turned the corner onto Whatcom road, I started running.  I haven't been doing well with timing my intervals as I find I focus too much on my watch so today I decided to use landmarks.  The first one was the 2nd lamp post on the street, walked to the next one and then ran to the gas station, then I walked over the freeway overpass to the other side where I got serious.  I ran for 2 power poles, walked for one, and I did that consistently until I hit my turn around point, and then did the same thing on the way back.  I struggled a little bit and I had to keep telling myself I could do this but I did it!  In total I ran for about 17 minutes.  That may not seem that big to some people, but trust me, for me that was HUGE!  It felt so good.  I felt so good that when I turned back onto our street at the end of my walk/run I sent a text to my husband and asked him to meet me at the gate with Angus so I could take Angus around the block for a walk.  Angus was a happy puppy to be able to go for a walk without my trying to make him run with me :)

I also had some really good times in my intervals.  I forgot to hit my lap button when I started running so I will try to remember that in the future so that I can actually see my running split times with my walking times, but when I look at the player on garmin connect it shows me the pace that I was going and I'm pretty happy with that! http://connect.garmin.com/activity/368987045

Walking/Running along the Corn fields

The power poles are a fair distance apart

On my return going over the freeway overpass

I've done two 5km races this summer and I'm signed up for another two in the fall.  The Rubber Duck 5k in October and the Boundary Bay 5k in November.  I'm also going to sign up for the Santa Shuffle in December when it opens for registration.    I'm hoping that I'll be ready to run the full 5km on October 20th for the Rubber Duck 5k.   I have a friend who has signed up to do it with me.  I know that she loves running and she's good at it, so I really want to be able to actually run with her.

Step totals this week:
Sunday       13,553
Monday      15,223
Tuesday      17,829
Wednesday 13,618
Thursday    13,671
Friday         14,437
Saturday     21,066
Sunday       15,880

Coping

It's been a rough week and a half for me.  I'm hanging in there and I'm really proud of how I've done.  In April of 2012, I left my travel job to take on a new opportunity for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, a cause that I support 150% and always will.  It was originally a 12 month contract that was extended to 16 months.  The end of the 16 months came on Friday.  It was my last official day as a contract employee with CBCF and it was a hard day.  To be honest it was a hard week.  I loved working there, I loved the people who work there, I love the volunteers that work there and I loved the interaction with my co-workers on a daily basis.   I've made some wonderful life long friends working there and I've met and made some wonderful friends on the daily train ride in.

It was a week full of challenges, from not eating through my emotions (very difficult for an emotional eater like me), to having lunch out with my co-workers on Thursday, to dinner out with my husband because I simply wasn't in the mood to cook!

I didn't get all of my walks in during the work day but I still got a lot of activity in.  When I went to my new WW meeting place on Saturday,  lo and behold I was amazed to see I had lost 1.3lbs.

I'm pretty surprised by that, I'm not quite sure how that happened, but I'll take the loss any way I can. :)

I'm also glad to know that I've got the coping skills to get through the week the way that I did.   It was a hard week, leaving such wonderful people behind!