Saturday March 10th

What a gorgeous day!  So different from last Saturday!   The sun was shining today, not a cloud in the clear blue sky!  My goal today was to walk for an hour. I used my mapmywalk.com tools and plotted out a route that I thought would take me and the dog an hour to do.  The key though was the pick up at the end of the walk.  I wanted to go walking in the country and with that it's not so easy to know where to turn around and head back. 

My husband was taking my car for an oil change so he agreed that he would pick the dog and I up at or around the 1 hour mark. 

Well wouldn't you know, it was the perfect day for a perfect walk. great music on the ipod and Angus was cooperative (meaning he didn't want to lay his scent every 2 feet!)  We bundled up and headed out, up and down the hill, over the overpass and onto the country road.   This was our 1 hour goal, a little over 4km's from our house.

When we reached this point I looked at my phone and we had only been walking for 41 minutes, that meant that our ride wouldn't be around for another 20 minutes or so give or take.  Our options were to turn around, or keep going and see how far we could get. 

I decided to keep going, although Angus at times had other ideas!

 (as in I want to stop here or go back, I'm done with this walking stuff)

We had gotten so far by the time my husband caught up to us that I had decided that we would just walk to the Starbucks down by Costco if my husband didn't show up!  He was amazed when he found us.  He couldn't believe that we had made it just over 5kms in an hour!

That's a personal goal of mine for this summer.  There's a 5km Walk/Run in June that I would like to do, the only problem is the route closes after an hour, that means these little legs need to get walking faster.  If today was any indication though, I should be able to do this!

Friday March 8th

Today was weigh in day and it was a happy, happy weigh in day compared to last week.  If you recall last week, I lost a whole whopping 2oz.  Yes, that was right 2oz.  I couldn't believe it and left the meeting feeling pretty dejected. 

This week, this week was a different story!  I just missed my10% goal by 1.5 pounds.  I had a loss this week of 5 pounds.  Talk about a happy camper!  It sure does feel good to see that kind of weight drop off. 

My leader and I both agreed, it was most likely water retention that screwed up my weigh in last week, so I'm not going to focus on it, or worry about it.  I'm just going to keep doing it!

Really? I can't get a break?

Sunday dawned and it seemed like the rain had passed, it was cloudy out but no rain in site!  Happy dance, happy dance, after only getting about 8900 steps in on Saturday (well below the goal of 12,000) I just wanted to get moving!  I also wanted to get Angus moving! When we had him to the vet's for his check up in December he was labelled as "obese" we were told that the 5 extra pounds on him was the equivalent of 50 on a human.  So we cut back his food, cut down the number of timbits treats he gets and he's getting in the long walks with me on the weekends ( he gets shorter walks through the week).  So we get ready for our walk. I bundle up with scarf and gloves, no umbrella as it's sunny, my ipod and we're off.  We got to the bottom of the hill and while waiting for the light to change felt a few rain drops.  I look up...the sky is still blue, clear but there are some dark clouds on the horizon.  We head across the street, and up onto the freeway overpass to get to where I want us to be walking on this fine day and low and behold as get to the next light we're getting rained on.  No umbrella, the blue sky behind us and a dark cloud right above us, at this point the wind picks up so now as we start walking down the country road it's windy, raining and now...glory of all glories...comes the hail.  Yes hail! Luckily it was just a really quick blast of freezing cold hail but looking at my poor dog you'd think I was torturing him.  His head was hanging so low that I swear his nose was touching the ground.  Look across the freeway to where we've just come from and what do I see?

Blue clouds over our house, and nothing but rain clouds heading for us!

None the less we kept on plugging, turned around at the golf course and headed back towards home.  Once we passed over the freeway we were again in the land of blue skies and sunshine.  It was easy to keep going along our walk and we actually enjoyed the morning.  By the time we made it back past the conference centre (the building in the picture above) Angus was quite happy to slow down and smell some boulders.  He does this so that he gets a break from walking and I can assure you he stopped at every boulder along the confrence centre, as well as every bench and bus stop.

All in all it was a great walk,   5.06Km's in 1:11:26.  I'm happy with that, my goal is get under 1 hour for a 5km walk.

Without Computer!

I've been here and I have lots to tell you but our computer at home died and so we've been computer less at home for a little over a week now but I do have all the posts ready to go so you're going to be inundated with posts over the next couple of days :-)  Enjoy!

Overcoming mean spirited people

Friday had a couple of bumpy parts of the day for me but I came out on top and that's what counts right!  I had to drive in to work as I had an event I was volunteering for and the train simply wouldn't get me home in time for my volunteer shift.  The drive in was horrendous as the "Pineapple Express" came ashore full force, I could barely see 20 feet in front of me between the rain and all the spray.  I made it to work with plenty of time to spare before my 830am meeting. 

I had meetings all morning and quickly bundled up and headed out to my Weight Watchers meeting at noon.  The rain was still coming down sideways and as I had a 1pm meeting I wasn't going to be able to stay for the meeting, nor get my whole lunch time walk in.  WW was busy as always, there are about 100 people who attend the meeting and after working my way through the line up I was really disappointed to find I had only lost 2oz.  2oz!!! Are you frigging kidding me, that's a drink of water!  I was so upset when I left the meeting, although my leader tried to put a positive spin on it for me.  I've lost 27 pounds in 7 weeks, my body needs my weight loss to slow down so it can catch up  But still!  2oz! 

I bundled back up and headed back out into the torrential down pour, beating myself up for such a low loss and was halfway back to work when a man walking towards me walked right into me! Not a gently bump but a WHAM right into me.   Not a polite oops, sorry let me help you get your umbrella back.    Instead he screams at me "I blame you for this!  If you weren't so f***ing fat this wouldn't have happened".  I was stunned!  I was speechless, I heard several people gasp as he's screaming at the top of his lungs at me and I didn't know what to do.  I  was mortified as tears started streaming down my face (yes as my husband will attest, it doesn't take much to make me cry).  By the time I got back to my office I had calmed down but I was still feeling really horrible about the whole incident.  I quickly wolfed down my lunch and hurried to my next meeting, hoping beyond hope that my nose was no longer red and my eyes weren't still watery. 

I was proud of how I handled it.  In the past that sort of comment would have thrown me for a loop, I would have started eating anything and everything I could get my hands on.  Instead, I ate my lunch, went to my meeting and then headed home to do my volunteer shift. 

I parked my car a couple blocks away from the event so I could get my steps in (steps I was short on because 1. I drove to work instead of training it which means I was missing 4500 steps right out the door) 2. I didn't get my lunch time walk in, another 4500-5500 step loss.)  I was really happy though as I walked and walked and walked doing my volunteer shift.  When I arrived I only had 3600 steps on my pedometer.  When I got home I had19,026!  I blew my 12,000 step per day goal right out of the water!  That's one way to overcome the mean spirited people we literally run into every day!

Holy Rain much????

I know I live on the "Wet Coast" but holy rain batman!  It's been raining pretty much since 8am this morning, and not just a light little sprinkle but a downpour most of the day.  I gave my umbrella to a train buddy this morning as she forgot her's and had several meetings she had to walk to in downtown and at that point it wasn't yet raining.  I knew I had another one in my desk drawer so I didn't think it was that big a deal.  Until the train pulled into the station, I got off the train and as I was walking to the escalator the heavens opened.  With no umbrella I decided to cheat and take the skytrain to work.  I can walk to work from the train station in about 14 minutes, the sky train takes bout 8 minutes, not much of a time savings but the pay off is the time spent outdoors.  The skytrain station I get off at is underground and when I get off and walk through the underground mall, I literally pop out across the street from my work buildings back door.  Nice and easy for when you don't want to arrive at work looking like  a drenched rat!

I've challenged myself to get out of my office and walk for at lest 30 minutes each day on my lunch.  I really, really, really debated doing it today.  It seemed like every time I looked out my office window, the rain was coming down sideways.  I'd look down onto the street (I'm on the 3rd floor) the water was running down the street.  I finally decided to heck with it, a little rain never hurt anyone right?  Right?  Well now it didn't hurt but I was soaken wet, and cold when I got back to the office from my walk. My umbrella was soaked, my jacket was soaked and my shoes were squelching there was so much water in them.  But I walked, for 32 minutes, I got up off of my chair and moved my body! 

When it came time to come home and I put my runners back on they were still quite wet so I figured what the heck, my feet are already wet and I need to get my daily steps in so I walked down to the train station.  Even with my umbrella I was a drowned rat by the time I got to the train.  The rain even affected my commute home as the train had to crawl along the tracks at a couple of places due to issues with the tracks.  I got into my home station cold, wet and hungry.  I decided to bypass my usual Thursday night gym workout and just go home I was feeling so miserable.

I got home and was starting to feel guilty about not going to the gym when I realized I had a workout at home I could do.  A few weeks ago at Costco I bought a kickboxing/killer abs dvd set and I hadn't yet cracked it open.  It's 1 20 minute workout so I could easily fit it in while dinner cooked.  I'm so glad I did!  I had such a good workout from it.  A much better choice then sitting on my butt on the coach feeling guilty.  Yeah for healthy choices!!!!

Big fat Liar!

I am a big fat liar and I have to apologize. After saying I would be better at blogging, I didn't blog at all.  To be honest the work change was at first hard, longer hours to start with.  I leave the house at 610am and I get home around 630pm.  BUT I love what I'm doing and I would not change the last 10 months for anything in the world. 

I also wasn't blogging as I wasn't doing anything.  I was the queen of denial....I had NO time to work out..I didn't NEED to be accountable....I didn't HAVE to stay on track....   We all know how that goes and it just simply is BS.  Full of denials and excuses. 

Well I'm back on track.  I went back to Weight Watchers in January and started walking from the train to my office and back in the afternoon ( I had been taking the sky train so I only had to walk about a block.  I'm now walking a little over a kilometre each way).

I've been really successful since my return to WW and to my activity.  I still don't get to the gym often but I'm walking and I'm moving and to me that's what counts.  I found a great website called mapmywalks.com  it gives me a detailed map of where I can walk, tracks the mileage and when I get back I can enter my time and it tells me how hard I'm working.  I actually just downloaded their APP the other day so now it maps me when I walk with my phone in the my pocket.  The only problem is that I don't have an iphone or android so the app is a little shaky when mapping me out.  From looking at the map,  you would think I walk like a drunken sailor trying to find his sea legs :-)

Once I figure out how to embed the map I'll do so, but for now you'll have to take my word for it ;-)