Being out of town...not making the best decisions

I haven't been feeling well this week and I'm a little worried about my weigh in tomorrow.  I haven't had a lot of activity as I've been fighting a head cold and I'm simply exhausted.  I took the dog for a walk this morning, just around the big block and it seemed to take me forever, my pace was 15:30 a kilometer and I was so hot, sweaty  and exhausted when I got home I just wanted to lay down. 

This is not good after being out of town last weekend.  My husband and I went up to Kamloops on Saturday to volunteer at the CBCF booth at the Run for the Cure.  We picked up the rental car around 11am and hit the road after dropping Angus off at my parents.  Shortly after hitting the road we were hungry so we stopped for lunch, McDonalds a wrap, some fruit that I picked up and rice cakes.  Not too bad, but I knew that we would be having dinner with friends and I wouldn't have any control over the points.  We ended up having Lasagna with Caesar salad and garlic toast.  Although I was conscious of my points, I was still over for the day.

I had a rough night sleeping, the hotel room next to us seemed to be having a party going on and off until almost 3am, I had to be up at 630 to be ready to head to the Run site.  I wasn't feeling good, my throat was sore and I had a stuffy nose so I didn't eat breakfast before heading to the field.

It was a true pleasure to be at the Kamloops Run site on Run day.  The Run committee and directors did an excellent job of putting the run together, everything seemed to run so smoothly for them!  It was great.  When we wrapped up around noon, I was starving so we went to Tim Horton's for lunch.  I chose a paninni and soup, the WW app on Gary's phone wasn't loading so I didn't know how many points I was spending on lunch.  By the time we drove home, dropped off the rental car and picked up Angus it was past dinner time.  We decided to cheat and order in dinner.  Big mistake for me.  I was hungry when I ordered so instead of just ordering my personalized pizza, I also ordered the restaurants marinara sauce and bread sticks.    Yep...not the best decision considering I had very little activity over the weekend.  I spent all of my daily points and half of my weekly points just on my meals on Saturday and Sunday. 

I woke up feeling sick on Monday and I just haven't had any energy to do anything more than take Angus around the block.  No long distance walks, no intervals, no nothing.  Which is so not good for me.  I have  the Rubber Ducky 5K in 8 days and the way I'm feeling I don't know if I'll be able to walk the full 5K let alone run it, which is what I had originally planned!

Needless to say, I used a lot of weekly points this week, didn't get in hardly any activity, I've only earned 12 activity points, I usually earn between 50-70 so I don't have much hope for weigh in tomorrow morning.  Part of me wants to just skip weigh in, call it a draw and work really hard next week but I'm not going to do that.  I'm going to suck it up and go to weigh in and let the chips lay where they fall.

I've lost a ten year old!

Not literally but physically!   The amount of weight I have lost as of today equals the average weight of a ten year old in North America.   I was so happy at weigh in this morning to get on the scale in my winter weigh in gear (no more summer sun dress for weigh in, pants and a shirt from here on out) and see a loss of 1.6 pounds to bring my total weight loss to 70.9 pounds.

This boggles my mind.  I've lost weight before, but not this much, I'm not sure how much further I want to go. I've been setting little goals for myself through my journey this far and I just have to decide if I want to continue setting the 10 pound goals for myself or if I want to select the ultimate goal and wrap my mind around a much bigger number.  The one thing with defining a final number at this point is my insecurity about it.  It's one thing to say after the fact I've lost 70 pounds, but if I had been thinking back in January when I started this journey, I have to lose 70 pounds I would have found it overwhelming.   Do I really want to say to myself I need to lose another 50, 60 or 70 pounds before I'm done and feel like it's an insurmountable task to take on, or do I keep doing this 10 pounds at a time.  I'm not sure yet.  It's something I have to think on and probably talk to my doctor about.  I weighed over 200 pounds when I was in grade 8 so I really can't picture myself at a weight lower than that although, that's still not what some would consider to be a healthy weight.  I have a while to go before I have to worry about setting a WW goal weight but it is something I have to wrap my head around.

I'm traveling up to Kamloops this weekend, where my husband and I will visit some friends on Saturday and then I'm volunteering for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure on Sunday October 6th.  This is a cause that is very near and dear to my heart.  I'm honoured to have been asked by the Foundation to go up to Kamloops to represent the Foundation at the tent giving out breast health information and talking to people about their breast health.  If you're interested in joining in visit www.runforthecure.com  and click on a city near you. The participation fee is only $40, which is pretty good for a 5k race with t-shirt, entertainment and healthy for you food!  If you're in the Kamloops area stop by the Pink CBCF tent and ask for Katie.  I should be there!

Having a plan and Resisting Temptation.

Last week was a good week, I earned a lot of activity points, conquered the Old Yale Road hill again with a better pace time and managed to do a proper downward facing dog!  I did it!  A real true to form, no modification downward facing dog!  I'm sure it probably wasn't pretty but I did it!  I had a loss this week of 6 ounces.  I was a little frustrated when I saw that on the scale and stayed behind to talk to my leader. I had brought my trackers (food and activity) with me to the meeting so we went through them together.  Believe it or not, I'm not eating enough.  When we added up all of my regular daily points that were left behind through the week, I had basically left an entire day's allotment of points uneaten.  Add in the 58 activity points I earned and she believes my body has just thrown on the brakes.  It's hoarding what it's getting because I'm not feeding it enough.   The plan this week is to eat every single one of my regular points each day, plus a portion of my activity points as well.

I was a little concerned as I'm honestly not hungry and I didn't know how I was going to get in all my regular points plus the others in.  She suggested that I skip the low fat salad dressing and go for regular dressing.  Drink a serving of juice a day.  Add a little bit of honey or sugar to my tea, get my once a week mocha with regular milk instead of fat free.   I'm a little apprehensive, but I'm going to follow her instructions, she knows what she's talking about.  I suppose I just have to trust that the scale will reflect next week's efforts.


It's been a weekend of temptation and I have another day to go, but I'm doing great.  I went to a friends house last night for girls night, which of course included a lot of goodies, dips, and good for you fruit and veggies as well.

I had a plan before I left the house, I ate an early dinner with my hubby, had a couple of glasses of water and planned to just have a couple of nibbles.  When it came time for food, I bypassed  a plate and just took a napkin, which meant I could only take one thing at a time.  I had a few pieces of bread with some cheese spread ( 4pts) and the rest of the evening I snacked on carrots, tomato's and pineapple.  I was very happy with how I did, and that I didn't over indulge.  I drank water most of the evening and had a great time.

Today I took my mom to meet some friends in Chilliwack at Apeldorn's for High Tea.  Again, I knew I had to have a plan going in.  All those delicious pastries and cakes, along with clotted cream and jam, warm scones, finger sandwiches oh my!   I did really well, I resisted the temptation, had three finger sandwiches, two finger scones and passed on all of the sweets.  I was so pleased with being able to say no to the deserts, as I love the items that were on the plates for us.  I ate the fruit garnish on the plates but I resisted temptation and stuck with my plan.  That has made me so happy!

Tomorrow night, it's dinner out at our cousin's house.  I'm bringing desert and since I want something nice and light that I don't have to worry about points for I've decided to bring a berry compote that we can spoon over 1 point sponges with a little bit of whipped cream for those who want it.  It will be a great way to enjoy desert for only 4 points in total.  I'm really proud of how I'm managing to resist temptation.  I'm making the right food choices and it feels really good!

Don't let the mean ones get to you!

I had a rough morning on Sunday.  I had a bad night sleep Saturday night.   My feet were so sore it kept me awake pretty much all night.  I finally broke down and put my compression socks on at 6am.  You know it's not going to be a good foot day when you have your compression socks on before you get out of bed!  Despite my sore feet,  the bad night sleep and the rain, I still wanted to get my intervals done for today.  I had down originally 5km for today, but I knew that wasn't going to happen with my feet being the way they are today, so I changed my plans and did a 3km route.  I was having a really good Run/Walk, my first running interval was 2 minutes long!  I was thrilled and I was doing really good alternating my walking and running, trying to make it even time for time.  I turned along S. Parallel road and was doing well, I took out my one ear bud from my ipod as I was running with traffic (there is no sidewalk and only one side of the road has a shoulder to run/walk on), and I was doing well with the distances I was doing, as well as keeping an eye on my watch for time sake.

I could hear a car coming so I moved further over to the shoulder, the car was slowing down, which surprised me as most don't, then the yelling started.  There were 4 boys/men in the car, and they started yelling at me, look at the cow run!  MOO!  I was a little surprised, and I almost stopped running but I kept going, then they came back!  They turned around in the hotel parking lot and came back at me, yelling all the while.  I was really annoyed, part of me wanted to just stop running, cut through the parking lot to the park stairs and go home.  I thought about it for a few seconds, but I kept going.  I wasn't going to let them get the best of me.  I'm doing something for me, and I have to keep doing it.  I could let this incident derail me, have a little pity party, but I won't.

I deserve better than that! Anyone deserves better than that.  I do get super annoyed when someone feels they have the right to tell me how to lose weight, or that I should lose weight. Why is it that people feel that they can come up to someone who is overweight and "advise them of what they need to do"?

Ty over at this is how ty runs, posted a link to another blog on her twitter feed today and I clicked over.  It was meant to be!  I so needed to read this blog today, and it was nice to see that I'm not the only person who feels this way!  If you have a minute go to http://gokaleo.com/2013/09/20/guest-post-fat-shaming-the-last-acceptable-form-of-prejudice/ 

To me that is exactly what those men/boys in that car were trying to do.  Six months ago, they probably would have succeeded.  I would have burst into tears, stopped whatever activity I was doing, start doubting myself and it would have caused a major setback.

I'm glad it didn't have that big of a negative effect on me.  I kept going on my run, actually getting a little bit angrier about it as I ran.  When I got home, my wonderful husband asked me how my run/walk was, told me he loved me and was proud of me.  That more than made up for a few nasty words from some people that I don't know.  Despite them, I had a great for me Run/Walk and I can't wait to get out and do it again.  If I did this well, being as tired and sore as I was, just think of how much better I'll do when I've had a good nights sleep!  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/379620931

I Love Zumba!!!!

When I had my gym membership, I loved going to the Zumba class!  I'm not coordinated at all, not in the least, when everyone goes to the right, I'm the one going to the left! LOL!  I loved going to the Zumba class as it didn't matter if I was doing the right moves or not, I was moving my body and that's what mattered.  Unfortunately the gym changed the Zumba class to an hour earlier and that left me not being able to attend due to my commuting time. 

I forgot how much I loved doing Zumba until today!  I went to the open house at my Weight Watchers centre and they had a Zumba instructor doing half hour Zumba sessions.  It was so much fun!   I loved the music and the movements and the instructor there was really good, showing you low impact and high impact movements.

I would love to do Zumba again, however looking on line for a Zumba class, there really isn't one that I can find without a gym membership.  I found an aqua Zumba, but that really isn't for me.  I just wish I could find one that I could drop in at every once in a while.  Oh well.

This week was a pretty good week, according to my Garmin this week I spent 6 hours, 17 minutes and 32 seconds walking, that doesn't include my Yoga, kickboxing or today's Zumba class.  Not bad at all.  I'm happy with my level of activity.

I didn't have a loss this week.  I'm not surprised as I did a volunteer job yesterday that ended up being 12 hours of sitting, so I didn't get that much activity in.  According to my pedometer I only took 8645 steps all day.  I could feel my feet swelling last night, and my shoes were tight on me this morning so I'm just happy I didn't have a gain from my day of inactivity.

On the Road to Success!

After my successful intervals on Friday, I was itching to go out and do intervals again today to see how I would do.  I'm participating in a virtual 5K this week as well, so I figured why not kill two birds with one stone?  Do my intervals and get in my virtual 5k?  My awesome husband kept Angus with him, and agreed to pick me up about an hour after I left the house at the Starbucks down by Costco.  It was a little foggy this morning so I wore my bright orange jacket.  It's so bright that I'm sure you could see me coming a mile away.

You can see how foggy it was, usually you can see across the freeway with no trouble.

I got ready and headed out for my walk/run and was immediately feeling good.  So good in fact that I started running before I had planned to.  I didn't use my watch to time my intervals, I just wanted to go as far as I could with each one and go from there.  I am so pleased with how far I ran today (I figure pretty close to 50% running) that for the first time ever, on my Garmin connect account I didn't put my activity as walking, but I left it as running!

I ran down the hill, to the gas station, walked across the cross walk and up to the freeway over pass, ran over the over pass, walked to South Parallel and then started running.  I set goals for myself as I was running, to judge the distance and to ensure that I would make my goal.  I used the roadside reflectors, or the mileage signs, some telephone poles and some power poles, driveways and barns for distances.  I made it Angus Campbell road, in 35minutes!  The first time I chose to walk this route, I thought it would take me an hour to get there, it only took 50 minutes that time but to shave that much time off by running/walking to me was amazing!

Checking my time at Angus Campbell Road 3.22km's in, loved seeing an average pace in the 10's!

It wasn't long before I came to the part of the road where if it weren't foggy I would have been able to see the Starbucks sign on Sumas way, for reference, it's across the street from the barn that you're seeing over to the right.

The barn is the white roof towards the left of the screen, before the trees.

I was thrilled when I got to this point as I was only at about 43 minutes or so.  I was feeling really well, and still running more than I was walking.  I was feeling so good about it...at one point, as I was running up an incline I was talking to myself telling myself to just get to the top, just get to the top, when I realized I was actually coming down the other side of it.   It felt so good to send a text to my husband as I turned onto Sumas way to start my cool down by just walking to note that I was under 50 Minutes and only had a half kilometer or so to go!

Finished watch time 53:53  Garmin Connect moving time 48.09 average pace of 10:47, Average moving pace of 9:22 best pace of 6:05!

I almost missed taking a picture at the 5km mark for proof for the Virtual 5K because I was feeling so good and didn't think I had gone that far!  It was amazing to think that the first time I did this walk, it took me an hour and 12 minutes to do.  In 6 months I've cut 20 minutes off of that time by walking faster and running.  I feel so good about this, that I can't wait for Tuesday to go out and run intervals again.  Hopefully I'll be ready for the Rubber Ducky 5K on October 20th and I'll be able to run most if not all of it!

Moving right along!

Things are moving right along and I'm very happy with how they are moving!   It was a great week for walking this week,  in the last 7 days according to my Garmin (which I only wear when doing a serious walk or walk/run)  I have spent 4 hours, 28 minutes and 4 seconds walking.  I have walked 17.66 km's during 6 activities.  This makes me happy, happy, happy.

It was a very hot week here, very unusual for mid September, fortunately I'm an early riser so we had our walks completed in the early morning, before the heat of the day.  Something that the dog has been grateful for I'm sure.  I have to admit I'm lucky with Angus, he'll usually walk as far as I want to, he's good with doing stairs, he's good with running (occasionally, when he's in the mood).  However with the heat and his winter coat coming in, this is his usual position when I come out of the shower after our walks.

Thanks for the walk, I'm just going to lay here and recover.

I had a great meeting this week, I was down a little over two pounds for a total weight loss now of 68.9 pounds.  I'm so excited to see a steady loss again!  Last week at the meeting my leader Colleen asked three of us if we could be the weight loss success stories for this week.  She gave us a questionnaire to fill out and asked us to bring either a before picture or an article of clothing to show how far we've come.  I decided to bring my trench coat with me.  I bought the coat last year and when I got it, even though it was the largest size they had, I couldn't button it up properly.  The top button would do up, the middle button would strain if I did it up and the bottom button...well there was no way it would do up.  I noticed during February and March that I was able to do up the top two buttons no problem and I never really even tried to do up the bottom button, just because.  I stopped wearing it in April  and May when the weather got warm and haven't had it on really since May or so.  I put it on Thursday night to see, and it is now huge.  I had originally thought I would be able to take it in, but there is no way that is going to happen, it is simply too large to do that with.

My hands are at the two edges of the coat showing where the buttons are, when I couldn't do them up.

My hands are showing where the two edges of the coat are now, a HUGE difference!

When I was originally asked my impulse was to say no, I'm not a success yet, I've got a long way to go....but it was pointed out to me that I am a success.  I've lost a lot of weight, I've changed my lifestyle.  I'm active and outgoing now.  If there's a day that goes by when I haven't gone for a walk, I just don't feel right.  It felt so good to be in my meeting and be able to share my success so far.   I am a success, and I'm moving right along....in the right direction!

I left Angus at home on Friday, I decided I wanted to do long intervals and I know that just won't happen with Angus.   When I headed out to my weight watchers meeting I took my work out clothes with me to change into after the meeting.  I then headed up to Rotary stadium to do the 5K Route that is used for the Run for the Cure.  I put on my ipod and started out and felt great.  I walked the first seven minutes or so and then started doing my intervals.  I didn't go by time or landmarks today, I wanted to see how I would do just going as long as I thought I could.  It was the right decision.  The majority of my intervals were almost a minute or perhaps a little longer than that.  I felt great, and it was such a sense of pride.  When I time my intervals with the watch, I struggle to get 30 seconds in as I'm watching the clock.  Today I didn't do that I just went and hit the lap button on my watch every time I started running and walking.  It was great!  I'm really proud of these times!  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/375042459  I goofed up on the walk and somehow missed a km on the route, I guess I turned too early and didn't get the full park loop in so it was only 4.1km's but I'm happy with how I did!