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

Great week!

Wow that week went by so fast!  There was all sorts of activity, a night out with my co-workers, date night with my husband and a good weigh in.  It's nice to know that I can face challenges and come out ahead!

The week did really go by so quickly.  Monday and Tuesday were super busy at work and on Tuesday I didn't get my mid day walk in, but I made up for that in the evening.  I've discovered that I have to have a contingency plan in place so that I can be successful.  Wednesday was a great day for activity and managing a challenge.  My Boss at work celebrated her 50th birthday last week and as a group a decision was made to take her to a spin class taught my another of our coworkers and then drinks and appy's afterwards.    I didn't feel that I was up for a spin class, I'm getting in shape, but to be perfectly honest, my caboose is still much bigger than the average person's and I don't think I would have had the stamina to keep up.  I decided that instead, while they were at spin class I would go for a power walk and then meet up with them.   So after work, when everyone else headed out for the spin class, I found myself power walking through downtown.  I decided to walk to the restaurant to scope out the parking situation and then back to the office to change and get the actual car.  I did about 3km's in just under 40 minutes which was great.  ( http://connect.garmin.com/activity/344290206 ).

Then for dinner I had scoped out their menu before hand and knew that I was going to order a salad with a grilled chicken breast on it.  I had salad for lunch, so I knew that I needed to get some protein in.  Here's where having a contingency comes into place.  We got the restaurant to find out that their oven had died and that they couldn't serve quite a few of their menu items.  One of the items was what I had chosen for dinner.  I had to change my plan and was a little nervous as I was trying to stay as close to on plan as I could, especially considering that I had weigh in under 48 hours!

Turns out I didn't have anything to be nervous about.  The points I had available for my dinner were 22, and I ended up using 16..  That made me feel great.

It paid off on Friday, when I went to weigh in I was down a pound!  I'm only 2 oz away from having lost 65 pounds.  So yes, those pesky 2oz have shown up again, but that's all right, I'll show them who's boss next week!

Step Count this Week
Saturday 13,545
Sunday   15,141
Monday 12,789
Tuesday 9,862
Wednesday 17,218
Thursday 14,748

Hills, Hills and more hills???

I feel as though I have been having an up hill battle kind of week this week.  My husband has been away on a business trip so it's been the dog and I.  When my husband is home, I ensure that we have a good healthy dinner at the table each night.  I really should have done that this week.  I didn't I usually ate on the fly, at the computer.  I didn't even eat dinner at the table tonight, I ate sitting at the desk as I was getting ready for a call with some volunteers.  My eating hasn't been as good as it should have been.  I didn't go wild, I just didn't eat properly.  Unless you count heating up Brusselsprouts in the microwave at 830 at night proper.  (I don't!)  My husband will be home in about 26 hours and everything will click back into place.

It was an uphill battle all week, I didn't eat properly, I didn't do any intervals at all.  (My pledge from last week not to do intervals with the dog ever again still stands).  I did get out for my mid day walks, add in a dog walk in the morning, and one in the evening and I managed to get a lot of activity in.  Which equaled a 1.2pound loss this week at weigh in!  I was very happy, that's three weeks in  row I've had significant weight loss!

My activity this week was a lot of walking, walking the dog in at 530 in the morning was new for me this week, my husband normally takes the dog in the morning, and I do the evenings.  I was really happy with my steps and I'm trying to keep my km's up as I have another 5k Race coming up on Canada Day.  I'll be doing the Rock on the Rock in White Rock to celebrate Canada day.  On the website it said that the route is a 2.5km out and back flat route.

The day before my husband went away we drove out to White Rock to get an idea of the area.  I found a route map from last year on line and we had a rough idea of where the walk starts and ends, and yes that's flat, but unless the route is different this year, than last year, it's not a flat out and back route.  There's a HUGE hill at the 1.5km mark that goes for 3/4 of a km!

That got me worried, so I've worked a lot of hills into my mid day walks this week, which isn't hard in Vancouver, and fortunately here at home I've got a hill to get off our street, and one to get back on it.

I took Angus this morning up the Whatcom Road hill near where we live.  It's a fairly long steep hill, we walked up to the first cross walk, back down, to the flats, and then up the Winfield Park Trail to get home.  All in all it was a 2.75 km walk that took us almost 40 minutes to do.  Considering I had the dog with me who either kept looking over his shoulder expecting to get picked up and driven home or simply sitting down with that "I'm not going another step" look on his face.  I'm not disappointed with our time.

I'm not taking another step I tell ya!  

Those hill's are a killer for a puppy dog, I'm exhausted!

Steps for this week:
Sunday         12,220
Monday       14,789
Tuesday       12,806
Wednesday  15,665
Thursday     11,101
Friday          14,496
Total Steps   81,077
 

Lots of steps equals

A big loss!  I made up for just losing 2 ounces last week by losing 4.2 pounds this week.  I was so happy, but at the same time a little disappointed.   Yes I did just say disappointed!  Not at the 4.2 pound loss,  that was awesome! But at the fact that I've lost in total 49.8 pounds, yes that's right  I missed the 50pound loss mark by 2 ounces!!!  I swear to goodness, 2 ounces is becoming my nemesis!   Those pesky 2 ounces seem to be popping up left right and centre.  It's enough to drive a girl crazy!

I did get a lot of steps in this week.  I made a concerted effort to try to get to at least 15,000 steps a day this week.  If I wasn't at that level by the time I got home, well then Angus Puppy got himself an extra walk in the evening!
Here is my step count for this week.

Saturday 19,441
Sunday 12,870
Monday 18,282
Tuesday 17,118
Wednesday 18,616
Thursday 17,260
Total Steps this week 103,587. 
Not too shabby if I do say so myself!  The goal for next week is to beat that total!

You probably noticed that I didn't include Friday in there, my reason is that depending on how you look at it, Friday is either the last day of the week or the first day of the week.  Seeing as how I go to a mid day weigh in meeting, it's technically both.  It's my old week until I get weighed and then it's my new week when I step off the scale.

It may seem silly, but that's my logic and I'm sticking to it.  I never give myself any activity points on a Friday.  I do however count all of my points.  I don't believe in "cheat days" or "reward days" or "days off".  If you are truly doing this as a LIFESTYLE change and not a diet, you need to truly live it and that means sticking to plan!  It doesn't mean you can't have a treat every now and then.  I had home fries with a turkey burger the other night for dinner, but every french fry was counted out for the serving size and the points were counted for it.

It looks like it's going to be a great weekend here.  The forecast is for Sunny skies and warm temperatures so it looks like I'll be putting on those walking shoes and knocking off some kilometers as I try to get my walking speed for a 5k up before June 8th.  That's the day I'll be participating in the Abbotsford Police Challenge Run supporting Special Olympics.  If you live in the Lower Mainland you should consider signing up for either the 5k or 10k run.  Here's the link to sign up. http://www.abbypd.ca/Challenge-Run

If you're participating in the Vancouver BMO Marathon, Half Marathon or 8K races, have a great race.

Have a great, safe weekend!